


And I Feel The Weight Of Your Eyes

by raiindust



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-19
Updated: 2017-09-16
Packaged: 2018-05-27 15:56:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 29,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6290731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raiindust/pseuds/raiindust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>She can, after all, see the world through his eyes, and oh what a world he can see.</em> </p><p>When Bellamy Blake meets Raven Reyes for the first time, it’s not like any traditional meeting he’s ever experienced. They are connected through a chance of fate, and can see the world through each other's’ eyes. But fate is a fickle thing, and secrets are never really secrets if someone else knows them; they are worse when someone can see a life through your eyes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written fic in forever, but this idea wouldn't let itself go. And so here it is (well, the first part at least). Based on the movie _In Your Eyes_ , and posted today as a part of Ravenbell AU Weekend.
> 
> Special thanks to geckoholic for being an amazing sounding board & beta. Any further errors belong to me and me alone, and I am sorry for their presence.
> 
> Title is taken from "The Feel Again (Stay)" by Blue October, which I discovered and listened to on repeat while writing.

**i.**

Bellamy is sitting quietly at his desk in his Earth Skills class when it happens, his hands wrapped gingerly around the small object he is examining. The shell had been handed to him only moments before, his teacher reminding him gently to be careful with it. The exterior is an odd combination of hard and frail, soft and smooth. Shells, he’s been told, were found on coastlines across the Earth. People would collect them, and take them home as decorations. Shells, he’s been told, hold the power of an ocean raging in the distance if you just hold it to your ear.  

At nine years old, Bellamy Blake can imagine how the rough ocean water might have felt pushing against his body, can conjure feeling the uncomfortable scratch of sand against his skin. He is also skeptical of fairy tales, and has felt enough disappointment in his short life to never hope. He was born to an endless night, where the only ground his feet will ever touch is the cold metal floors forged by their ancestors. Earth is only a dream they orbit, kept alive in their minds by treasured artifacts snatched from homes before they crumbled, and long forgotten memories that live on as bedtime stories. 

But in this moment, with the soft but hard, smooth but rough shell in his hands, Bellamy is tempted to raise it to his ear, to listen and to hope and to believe. Except as he looks down, his hands no longer his own. They are smaller and softer, and though he can feel the cool of the shell resting in his palms, and the firm wood of the chair under his arms, it all but disappears. His eyes are unfocused, shifting hazily between his reality and somewhere else. He can hear a voice raging, louder and louder, and can taste blood on his lips. His hands clench, crushing the shell into pieces. Another voice starts, this time much closer, and he looks up, bewildered before being pushed back sharply by an invisible force, and lost to the darkness.

  
  


\--

  
  


The second time it happens Bellamy has all but forgotten the day in Earth Skills when he was nine and destroyed a treasure. He is older now, with the weight of a long kept secret hung heavy on his shoulders. Already a cadet-in-training, he is on his way to becoming a member of the Guard, the safest place for someone who dreams the word brother, whispers the word sister, knows the definition of responsibility is written in blood. 

Training takes place primarily in Arrow Station, a station re-purposed to house what are deemed Peacekeepers in times of strife, and Guardsmen in times of calm. It’s his least favorite station, with the sparse, empty corridors a constant reminder of how destructive a spark can be. Ark History taught him of the epidemic some fifty years earlier that threatened the future with a single cough. To save the many they slaughtered the few; cutting power and resources from the station until the only legacy left were the immune. The tale became a cautionary for those who came after, the ghost of choices made written into history as necessary sacrifices; the leaders praised for preserving the future. 

He senses the happiness above all else. Joy spreading through his veins, a smile creeping onto his lips. The dim hallway blurs into nothing and then brightness, something beaming onto a workbench, hands too small to be his own flicking at a switch, on off, on off, the repetitive motion causing something in his heart, in their heart to erupt with happiness. Bellamy reaches his hands forward, finding the familiarity of the hard cold metal a comfort beneath his blurred vision, and then words fill his head. Distant at first, so quiet he can barely make out the words, until suddenly they are deafening,  _ oh shit, shit shit shit _ , and then he is drowning in the noise. “Enough.” He shuts his eyes and finds silence, back in the safety of darkness, alone.

Then, a voice.

“Am I losing my mind?” Barely audible, the soft words ring in his ear. “I mean it was bound to happen given my family history, I’m surprised it took me this-”

“No.” Bellamy interrupts, the word reverberating like an echo into nothing. “I think, I mean, I don’t think you are crazy-” but then,  _ it could be me losing it instead _ .

“Yeah, okay, sure. You  _ are _ real and I’m _ not _ hearing voices.” Sarcasm seeps from the words, and Bellamy shuts his eyes in an attempt to gain clarity.

Bellamy isn’t used to words spewing from someone’s mouth like this. In his world there is only hushed tones spoken softly, gently. This voice is brash and audacious and loud, like it wants to fill the silence with as much noise as possible. It fills his mind to the brim and he can feel each syllable punctuated clearly in his mind, like the beat of a drum pounding in his ears. 

“And imagining creepy walkways that I have never seen before, and I’ve seen everywhere, been everywhere in this-”

And it’s belongs to a girl. Perhaps. Someone who definitely, he thinks, is of the female persuasion. 

“Apparently not.” His voice is frustrated as he cuts her off, wanting desperately to shut her up. “I am real, sorry to break it to you, you are just garden variety normal--”

“Except nothing that’s happening is garden variety here buddy. I am talking to a voice in my head who has a habit of walking empty corridors and, and-” Her voice raises a little as if something in the past clicks into place. “Get’s panic attacks when people knock on doors.”

Here she takes a breath, and Bellamy leans back against the wall to stop himself from shaking. “You-” He breathes out, running hands through his hair nervously. “You know about that?” The words form cautiously as his fingers interlock in his hair, an impending sense of fear lingering in the pit of his stomach,  _ what if _ floating in the air.

Instead, “Yeah I know about those. Heart murmur my ass.” She bites out bitterly, and for a brief moment Bellamy has the good grace to feel apologetic before relief washes over him. 

“Heart murmur, huh?” He responds as another sharp, short laugh fills his ears.

“No one would listen when I told them it was crippling fear.” She replies, her voice softening a little, and Bellamy can feel the tension easing, and isn’t sure if it belong to him or her or them. She laughs again and Bellamy thinks it could be the best sound he’s heard in awhile. “What’s a boy's voice in my head,” She sighs, “In the overall cosmic joke that is my life?”

Silence falls and for a moment Bellamy forgets he has a mother who he can barely look at and a secret hiding in the floorboards because  _ my sister, my responsibility _ . He forgets he’s training for a job to keep them safe and sound and just is, with slow breaths echoing in his mind, calming his heart. 

“I know you don’t believe me, but I am real.” He says finally, and she just continues to laugh. “Name’s Bellamy.”

For a second he feels breathless and wonders if this is the moment where hearing someone speak and listening to their world and seeing through their eyes becomes too much for the girl at the other end. Then, it eases, and he can see once more her hand flicking the switch, on off, on off, and that same smile is clawing it's way back to his lips. “Okay, boy in my head whose name is Bellamy.” On off, on off. “I’m Raven.” She breathes into the darkness. “Nice to meet you.”

  
  


\--

  
  


“So,” Raven murmurs gently, nudging him awake. He wonders quietly if he will ever get used to sharing a life through someone else's eyes.  _ Probably not, especially her eyes _ comes the silent reply. “I’ve figured it out.” She continues, and he notices that she too is laying down, her fingers playing absentmindedly with the fraying thread of the blanket beneath her. “You’re in the Guard. You were in Arrow Station the other day. It’s why I didn’t recognize it, only the Guard has access.” 

She sounds smug, and Bellamy smiles sleepily before nodding, then realizing she can’t actually see him, only feel the motion. “Yep. The secrets of the Ark are told to only the chosen few. Guess we have a real Sherlock Holmes on our hands.” He retorts, and smiles a little when he feels her shake her head. “Who the fuck is Sherlock Holmes?” She demands with a twinge of annoyance. Bellamy cracks a smile, “Someone who lived a very long time ago,” is the only response he supplies.  

Inching upwards slowly, he peers around the room to make sure the other inhabitants are sleeping soundly before pushing himself up off his bunk and sneaking silently from the room. Outside the corridor is lifeless, lit only by the soft glow of the moon. He walks towards the window, sliding down the wall to watch the endless space and glimpse the uninhabitable earth orbiting beneath them.

“I’m going to see them, one day.” Her voice sighs wistfully, and he knows instinctively she must be talking about stars because it’s all he can see though his eyes and her own. The only difference is her stars are stenciled in patient patterns across the ceiling of her room, the constellations mapped out like a path to her heart.

“Why?” He asks before he can help himself, his innate curiosity catching up with him. Bellamy has, after all, always been afraid of that which he cannot control, so the idea of going out there into the emptiness of space is something he can’t fathom. 

“To be free.” Comes the whispered reply and Bellamy thinks he might be hearing the real Raven, the true Raven push through, stripped of sarcasm and bravado. Just a girl who wants to escape the monotony of the metal hull they call home. And that, that he can understand. 

“Yeah,” He breathes softly, “that would be nice.”

Quiet contemplation takes over the conversation, their eyes looking up and out into the stars they share their universe with, until Raven’s sleepy voice breaks the silence. “I don’t know how or why this happened,” Her words are faint, but Bellamy still feels them in his core. “but, I’m glad it did. And I wanted you to know, I’m glad I met you.” He smiles then, small and gentle. “Juuuuuust,” She draws out the word with a yawn. “Don’t creep on me when I’m naked, or anything. That’s just weird.”

  
  


\--

  
  


Threads from his life begin to unravel the more they talk, strands of moments become inextricably linked and it becomes clear that they have been bound since birth. 

“When I was, maybe, fourteen, there were two months where I felt this inherent sadness.” He says gently, trepidation causing his voice to waver slightly. Still in the process of getting to know each other, Bellamy treads lightly around moments of sadness with Raven, aware that while she is clever and bold, there is fragility floating just below the surface.

He wonders if he found the line not to cross, but bulldozed over it anyway when her silence greets him, but finally she looks up from her math homework ( _ Gibberish _ , Bellamy had called it once, and she’d mercilessly mocked him for his lack of smarts) and sighs. He sees her move cautiously across her room, grabbing a portrait and staring at it intently. He can see a small girl with a wide smile standing between two people, barely adults, barely older than he is now. Unlike her smile, which is natural and pure, theirs are forced and tight, as if forced to put it on for the camera - and Bellamy can only guess as to why. Having a photograph on the Ark is a rare thing indeed, but he can sense that Raven feels less than thrilled to have this at her disposal, not ashamed exactly, but like it’s presence causes her heart to weigh a little more in her chest. 

“Those are, uh, my parents,” A pause, and gulped breath. “WhenIwastwelvemypapágotfloated.” The words come out garbled as one big word and she takes a short breath before continuing. “He wasn’t the best,” Bellamy feels her shoulders shrug, “but he was all I had. And mamá,” A bitter laugh echoes in her empty room. “She was never right, but at least when papá was around she was here.”

Bellamy considers her weighted heart, her savage scorn for the Ark’s hierarchy. Having a parent floated on the ark causes instant shame in some circles, and Bellamy imagines when you’re twelve and the only thing holding you together gets shoved into a box and sucked into space, that sort of thing can irrevocably change who you are. That day, he imagines, the girl with the bright smile burned and the girl with the heavy heart and sharp wit rose from her ashes.

“Raven, I--” He stutters, stopping. When someone tells you about their parents death, knowing what to say, to ease the pain, it’s never easy, or right. “I am --”

“Sorry?” She cuts in, her voice bitter. “Yeah, that’s what they said, after they handed me his jacket. As if the word could replace a life.”

Silence overwhelms him as he searches for words but comes out wanting. He thinks, of his own father who gave him nothing except a face and a name. He thinks, knows, somewhere deep in his gut, that Octavia exists to ease the pain Aurora feels when she looks at him and sees the man who gave her a son and nothing else. You can’t lose what you’ve never really had and yet it still burdens his mind at times like this, when fathers exist only as reminders of happier times. 

Raven saves him from his thoughts (as she has a knack of doing) when she declares, “Screw sorry,” with ferocity. “If you are going to float someone at least be man enough to be a dick about it.” A barked laugh makes his way from his mouth, and he opens his mouth to apologize but thinks again, when he realizes how cheap it would sound. Instead he trusts that Raven knows he get its, that he understands where the cynicism and sarcasm come from, and that he wouldn’t change a thing about her.  

  
  


\--

  
  
  


From that point on Raven’s voice is a constant in Bellamy’s mind. It juts in and out across the day, and as days turn to weeks turn to months he can barely remember a time before she was there. She connects with him across the day, with sarcastic quips and angry interjections and, occasionally, words of encouragement just when he needs them most. He, in turn, sees her small hands work steadily on problem sets and intricate machines Bellamy knows he couldn’t dream up, let alone create. They come to find that while she doesn’t always have words, he sometimes only has them, but together they manage to make it work, this new hyper awareness of someone's entire reality.  

She teaches him about basic equations and simple repair in her own gruff manner, laughing when his larger hands fumble with tools that her own smaller ones move delicately around, and he tells her about ancient civilizations that lived and died long ago, whose ruins society built their own destruction on. He calls her Hephaestus once while he’s watching her work with fire, and she asks what it means. So he tells her the stories Aurora told him during his childhood, the ones about gods and goddesses who wreak havoc on humanity. She likes those ones, he can tell; her hands stop fiddling as the words slip from his lips. Eventually, she starts asking him to tell her the stories when she finds herself alone in her room, as if the sound of his voice and the stories of an ancient time can keep her loneliness at bay. 

He turns twenty-one, and she is there for his induction into the Cadets. She smirks wildly when Kane hands him the worn blazer, and mocks the oath Bellamy takes along with nineteen other young men. He barely makes it through without cracking a smile, Raven has heard him practicing for weeks, and she recites the words perfectly, sarcasm dripping from her voice. But at night when he peers at the jacket through sleepy eyes, he hears  _ congratulations _ in its most sincerest form. 

She turns eighteen, and he feels his heart ripped in half as she is told she doesn’t qualify for the Zero G program. Once again his words are not enough. She shuts him out for a week (and how can she not when it’s all because of him?) but then loneliness is washed away with elation because Sinclair, a god among men, declared her too good to let go. “Damn straight,” he yells into an empty corridor, and smiles widely when he feels her mouth stretch into a grin, his heart constricting with love. 

And when she finally steps out under the stars he sees fragments of constellations and is struck suddenly by the fragility of everything. Humanity has lived and died a thousand times under the enduring night sky, and here they sit, those lucky few, the last hope circling a wasteland world. 

He sees her then, for the very first time, while he is adrift in his darkness. Light catches on her helmet, causing a reflection against the cool outer metal, an illumination of a girl with a radiant smile as wide as he could imagine, with jet black hair and dark skin. She is radiant and perfect and so very dazzling that he never wants her to fade. He whispers “You’re beautiful,” as the reflection fades, and even though the moment passes, the memory is tattooed onto his soul. 

A light guiding him from the darkness. 

  
  


\--

  
  


“What’s it like?” She whispers gently, burrowing herself under the covers. By now he is used to her presence in the darkness, late night hushed conversations while the lower ark quarters sleep soundly through the night. He shivers, goosebumps prickling on his skin and wonders if he is siphoning the heat from her. He curls tightly into himself before replying. “What’s what like?”

A beat, then he feels her breath hitch, his own stuck in his throat. Her hesitation betrays her nerves, and Bellamy knows that Raven doesn’t get nervous. He braces himself for the words that could come tumbling from her mouth, words that would destroy his world. She can, after all, see the world through his eyes, and oh what a world he can see.

Yet as the sounds stumble out he feels them both sigh in relief. He, because his world is safe for a moment longer, and she because her question cannot be taken back. “Seeing me,” She mumbles through her covers, “through your eyes?”

For most people the question would be simple enough, seeking absolution for their basic human flaws. But Bellamy knows Raven as she knows herself; knows the ways she hides her insecurities behind her rough exterior. He feels her move through their world, feels the way she aches for the expanse of the universe, desperate with longing to explore the stars and escape from the tiny box she exists within. He knows that her heart is frayed like the blanket she holds on to for dear life, that she desperately seeks the love of a mother who will never love her back, not in the way she deserves; knows she is tenacious and rough and angry, afraid and soft and full of light. 

“I remember the first time it happened, you know? Seeing through your eyes.” He begins softly. “I was in Earth Skills and it was fucking Beach Day.” He hears her scoff and a small smile crosses his lips, because Beach Day is a rite of passage all children on the Ark Undertake, seen as a joke the older you get, because what chance do they have of ever touching the ocean water, or feeling the sand beneath their feet. “I had this shell in my hand and it twinkled so strangely in the light, and was soft and hard and smooth and rough all at once. And then these hands, little hands that were too small, too dark to be my own, they were clenching the shell, and all I could do was sit there while this, this fire coursed through me.” 

He pauses for a moment, and can feel Raven holding her breath. “Those hands, that fire; it was all you. At the very end I felt so small and alone, but right before I blacked out there was also this strength, this willpower to stand up and be counted and be loved, and that’s what I see, that’s what I feel every time I am with you.” Another pause, when her hands gently lift themselves to wipe silent tears from her eyes. “You are like that shell, Raven, soft and hard and rough and smooth all at once, with this fire that burns bright and stronger than I could ever dream.”

“Bell,” Her reply is more of a sigh, and he is so lost in thought the realization of a nickname used by one person and one person alone doesn’t cross his mind until the secret is stumbling from her lips. “I know.” So soft, he can hardly hear, and then hurriedly she adds. “But I won’t tell.” He sees her hands criss cross across her heart, the long forgotten symbol of promises forever kept.

But his heart in is his chest, thudding desperately and drowning out her words because his secret is no longer his alone. And it's never a secret for long when two people know. 


	2. ii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _In the end it doesn’t matter if she’s there or not. Octavia Blake get’s caught all the same._ or the continuation of the Raven  & Bellamy AU where they know each other on the Ark, without actually _knowing_ each other.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another shoutout to [geckoholic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic) for continuing to be my sounding board for this fic. I now have somewhat of a plan of where this fic may be going, but can only promise that it _will_ be going further than this. 
> 
> Any errors belong to me and me alone, and I am sorry for them. 
> 
> Title is taken from "The Feel Again (Stay)" by Blue October, which still remains my writing jam.

 

**ii.**

Bellamy Blake is twenty-two when his world all but ends. Bellamy Blake is twenty-two when they find his sister.

And Raven knows the minute it happens, because she’s the one who gets them caught.

 

\--

  
  


“Jesus Bellamy, she’s fifteen and she’s never been outside your box.” Raven rants into his ear, as she feels him move through Hydro, weaving his way quickly through the throng of occupants. He opens his mouth to interject but she doesn’t given him a chance. “Can’t you understand why the girl is frustrated? I mean, sure, the Ark is old as fuck and we do everything we can to keep it from falling apart, but she’s never seen, god, she’s never seen anything Bell,” She pauses, running a hand through her hair, tying it back roughly. “O has never seen anything.”

Raven feels his body sag, frustrated, and knows that she’s won. Or in the process of winning. Not that she was ever in danger of losing this fight. In just over a year, she’s (mostly) learned how to play on Bellamy’s feelings, how to tug at his heartstrings. And when all else fails, use the nickname (because when Bellamy uses it, his voice becomes soft; filled with love, plagued with doubt). It might be a dick move, but Raven isn’t the kind of girl who walks on eggshells when arguing a point, she’s the kind that hammers it home.

Sitting back down at her workstation, Raven checks slowly over her shoulder to ensure her solitude. It had taken Bellamy days to comprehend that someone else knew his secret, then weeks to believe it was safe with her. There had been lots of tense moments, where her heart murmur had been out of control. She’d even been benched from Zero G maintenance for a week, Dr. Griffin fearing the worst would happen if she set foot in space.

Sister. Brother. Sibling. Archaic words annihilated after the first generation of Arkers. Raven knew the stories as well as anyone else, there was rationing in place, resources needed to be shared equally if the humans floating in the sky were to survive long enough to reclaim the ground. Raven herself had never cared for familial terms. They hadn’t done her much good in the past, and seeing as her future was pretty much mapped out floating in space (the exit to Earth wasn’t scheduled for at least another two generations), she was willing to forget the words all together.

Then she met a boy called Bellamy Blake. Who lived inside her mind, and through whose eyes she saw the most incredible things. And suddenly the word sister was synonymous with secret, and the one thing Raven prided herself on was guarding secrets close to her heart. Eventually Bellamy had learned to breath without fear again, and he let Raven back in.

She feigned indifference when she heard his voice for the first time in weeks, haughtily implying that she hadn’t missed him at all. She had, of course, but to let him know that was to let him all the way in, and Raven wasn’t sure she was ready for that particular conversation. Yes, they were friends, close friends as it were, but that didn’t mean she was going to fall apart without him. She was Raven freaking Reyes, youngest Zero G Mechanic in 52 years; she refused to become a pretty girl with an empty heart.

Though now Bellamy had returned, Raven found she couldn’t shut him up. It was as if with the revelation of someone else, someone outside knowing his secret, the floodgates opened, and all he was, was words. Of love, of adoration, of concern, of pride, of fear. He spoke about late night knocks at the door; of how his mother always knew when to hide Octavia away. Of how he had watched over her for a full week when she was first born, afraid that she would be heard by someone and stolen into the night, floated for simply existing. He purged his feelings onto her, sharing the burden he had held for so long, and Raven knew it was easing his mind, having someone, anyone else there to listen.

The only problem was, the more Bellamy talked to her, the more Raven wanted to talk back, because she felt for his sister (she stumbled over the word still, too foreign on her tongue) that she’d only seen in brief glances across the year, forced to keep quiet in her cage. Raven knew a thing or two about cages; after all, a bird with clipped wings cannot fly, and for the shortest time her wings had been ripped from her, and spacewalking was almost only a dream.  To be locked in a box for your entire life with no window to the outside world, no view of the vast universe with dying stars and rejuvenating worlds, it made Raven’s heart hurt with sadness.

So here they were again, having the  _ same _ debate they’ve been having for weeks now. Where Raven pushes and pushes for a fleeting moment of freedom for this girl she barely knows. Where Bellamy digs his heels into the ground and pretends not to hear her plea.

Raven watches as Bellamy stumbles tiredly into a secluded hallway, and while he ruminates on her words she admires the architecture of Hydro, with its equidistant points mapped out perfectly to create four perfectly symmetrical sections.  _ Like a four-leaf clover _ , Bellamy had remarked to her, before. Raven had felt silly then, not knowing what he was referencing, but Bellamy (always the teacher), had found a picture stashed somewhere in a book and shown it to her. Through his eyes she had glanced at the image, four gentle leaves floating in a breeze, with a simple caption  _ To find luck _ . She could tell, even as she looked away from the image, that Bellamy longed for the reality of that image - to touch something so real and fragile and wish. Then she hadn’t known what he would wish for. Now it was all she knew.  

“The worst part is,” Bellamy hushed whispers echo in Raven’s ears. “There isn’t a precedent for  _ this. _ There is nothing in writing anywhere about the consequences of  _ this. _ ”  _ This _ is the all-encompassing term Bellamy has taken to using when out in public.  _ This _ means sister and danger and uncertainty, three of Bellamy’s least favourite things. He couldn’t move past those to see when Raven said  _ this _ she meant freedom and flight for the girl in the floor.  _ This _ came with risk, but what didn’t in a world where breathing is a luxury, and life expendable if the wrong choice is made?  

Once again Raven’s eyes spy around her. It’s late in Mecha station, they are scheduled for night roster within the next hour, and yet it’s not her secret to reveal, so she takes all the care in the world to conceal her words with a hushed tone. “Look, Unity Day is coming up. I hate the fucking event, but it does come with the bonus of the Masquerade for all teenagers. I’m just saying, someone slips you a mask, you slip O a mask, and for a night she gets to see. She gets to see it all.”

Raven is met with silence, but the thoughtful kind, the kind she finds herself in, late at night, with Bellamy on the opposite end of the -- line, so to speak. It’s when she likes talking to Bellamy best, when the artificial light of the Ark goes dim around her, when the stars illuminate her metal world, and Bellamy’s quiet breaths align with the beat of her heart. There is something soothing in knowing that while loneliness  _ could _ creep in, she’s never really alone, not really. Not with the stars in her mind and his breaths in her soul.

A warning bell floods Mecha Station, breaking their reverie. “Shit,” Raven mouths, feeling Bellamy’s lips turn upwards. Her profanities amuse him, this much she knows. She isn’t caught between a secret and a profession that requires her to remain an upstanding citizen of the Ark, so she mouths off whenever she can, hoping the smile will appear. “Lights out in ten minutes. I really need to get back to my box.”

Raven knows Bellamy will understand. While he can hang about in lonely corridors, or look for pockets of emptiness because of his training, Raven isn’t afforded such a luxury. And walking the busy corridors of Mecha while talking to herself is going to attract the wrong sort of attention. Sometimes they talk, when she is back in her box, and he in his -- but tonight, she knows, it won’t be possible. He has just worked double shift (as he tends to do), covering where he could to stay in the good graces of those he reports to. Raven can feel the exhaustion seeping through his body, fatigue weighing heavy on her muscles. Instead of asking for a bedtime story (which she’s been known to do on occasion) Raven flicks off the lights and states softly, “Go to sleep, Bellamy. And think about what I said.”

  
  


\--

  
  


“Raven,” She hears Bellamy murmur softly in an attempt to wake her delicately. It’s Sunday, the third Sunday (of their manufactured month in their manufactured year), or as Raven likes to call it, Sleep-day. It isn’t that she doesn’t love her job, love the work that she does on the Ark. For the Ark. It’s just sometimes, occasionally, Raven wishes for something else. Not necessarily something more, but else. And on the third Sunday of every manufactured month she could be something else.

“Fuck off,” comes her sleepy reply, mumbled into her pillow. “It’s Sleep-day,” but of course, Bellamy knows this, which is why he approached with care. “I’ve been thinking about this Unity Day idea,” He sighs, and laughs when Raven is jolted upright so quickly she falls from her bed onto the cold, hard ground. “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” She asks, rubbing one elbow that had smashed itself in a particularly ungraceful manner. “Does O know yet?” Raven feels breathless, euphoric, her heart uncaged from it’s chains with joy. “No, she doesn’t.” She says instantly, because Bellamy couldn’t keep her out when he was containing his sister, and Raven would have seen, or at the very least heard the reaction if he’d told her.

She slumps back against the bed with the realisation. His silence is another indication that he has yet to bite the proverbial bullet and accept the decision he has ultimately already made. Raven knows it weighs heavy on his mind, the choice he has before him. Let his sister escape a box for an evening, and see the Ark in all it’s glory, or keep her safe and hidden and live with her sadness. She supposes that’s what the term  _ Brother _ means, but Bellamy has been cursed to bear the word alone. Cursed or not, that doesn’t give him the right to keep his sister captive. Not when opportunity presented itself in such a spectacular way.

“Bell, you have already requested to be present at the event. Need I remind you that I had to basically stop you from begging before you looked suspicious?” An eyebrow arches itself perfectly, and for a fleeting second she wishes he was there to see it. “You will be there, if anything goes wrong. But it won’t, because no one will notice another mask in the crowd.”

Raven feels the tension that Bellamy holds begin to ease from her body, which means it’s easing from his own. She’s good at this, talking him down from those breathless moments of fear. But then, “Maybe,” He swallows roughly. “Are you planning to be there, too?” His words are quiet, as if he almost wishes they weren’t falling from his lips. Now it’s her turn to have her breath caught in her throat, the air sucked from her lungs in fear. Bellamy is asking the impossible question. The question that lay dormant between them for months and months, waiting patiently for the right time to fill the empty space between them.

“It’s just,” He scrambles quickly, “I would feel better knowing you were there. That there was someone else, you know, on O’s side. We don’t have to talk. Or meet. Or even acknowledge each other’s presence. I just --” The sentence is left open, and Raven considers his inner struggle. The benefit of using this opportunity to meet versus the happy coexistence of their current situation.

She is struck then, with how she never really imagined what meeting Bellamy face to face would be like. It’s an idea that’s frayed on the edges of her mind, of course it  _ could _ happen, anything could happen on the Ark. They are, after all, trapped. Raven isn’t one for  _ friends _ , not really, and yet what she and Bellamy have is already so much more to her; a revelation that links two souls together in the most unpredictable yet amazing way.  She sees what he sees, feels her body ache when his muscles are tied, hears words as they spill from his lips. And yet, he exists in her mind, and through her eyes, nothing more than a ghost in her life.

Raven isn’t sure she is ready for him to manifest into flesh and bone.

“Bellamy, I--” She begins, the words caught in her throat. She sees his hands resting on his chest, his body stretched out lazily on his bed. The yearning hits suddenly, unexpectedly. A desire to take her hand in his, to assure him that it will be okay. That Octavia will see the world she’s been kept from and be returned safely to her box, that Bellamy will be able to protect her. That Raven will keep their secret. She climbs back onto her bed, her small body sprawling to mimic his. He realises the sameness of her movements, a mirror to his own.

Hands glide achingly across skin, smooth and soft, towards his. Fingers interlock knowingly, resting gently on her stomach. She feels his thumb rub faintly against her own, feels her hands grasp tightly, a desperate attempt to have the sureness of the movement voice the words that will forever fall into silence. The line between them (one they had drawn long ago) begins to blur, and Raven shuts her eyes and let’s the pressure of her hands be soothed by the soft back and forth of his thumb, running itself over her coarse skin again and again.

“I’ll be there,” Raven breathes out, and hopes Bellamy can’t feel the way her heart stops in the middle of the lie. She hopes the idea of her is enough for him to cling to the courage she knows is there; wishes she could be what he needs her to be (maybe, she will never be that).

Instead, “Raven, can we just, stay like this for a while?” Bellamy asks. Raven can’t tell if it’s resignation or content that fills his words, but she can’t lie to him again. So she slips further into her bed and nods. “For as long as you need.”

  
  


\--

  
  


Raven makes his decision for him, and sends Bellamy two masks. One is jet black with no garnishes, suited to the face of a Cadet (who she knows already will not be able to wear it). The second is blue, shaped with all the care and precision her hard worked hands can muster. It’s square and sharp and rough, a perfect disguise for a girl who needs to be overlooked in the darkness, as Raven knows there will be far more elegant masks on display. 

The masks are easy though, compared to the note she knows must accompany them. Tradition on the Ark decrees intentions should always be attached to gestures, especially with an event such as this, where all the teens across the Ark gather in a single confined space, each one consumed by hypnotic beats and raging hormones. Raven stumbles with the words, torn between caution (necessary) and flirtation (expected). She settles, finally, for brief. _For you to see the world through my eyes._ Find me, she thinks, are the final words are on the tip of her fingers that never make it onto the page. Instead they are etched into her mind, hopeful that one day soon she will be brave enough to breath them aloud.

The delivery is arranged before the urge to add those words takes over. It’s better this way, she thinks to herself. Bellamy has a reason now, to be shadowing a girl at the party. She’s given him a reason to protect Octavia among the throngs of uninhibited youth. A reason to stay close, and keep her safe. Even if it leaves Raven without a reason to go.

In the end it doesn’t matter if she’s there or not. Octavia Blake get’s caught all the same.  

The night is a series of flashes for Raven, locked safely in her workshop in an effort to avoid the outside world. Bellamy loses control every now and then and Raven feels her heart pounding erratically in her chest as she watches Octavia see the world for the first time. When the stars and earth move into view Raven feels her body weaken, the sight a spectacular thing even still for the girl who walks in space. She knows Bellamy is battling fear so in that moment she musters all the joy she can to remind him that O is safe, that he is there, and that this is good.

Next they move through the masses, and Raven helps Bellamy fight the urge to hold his sister tight, and wills him to stand back and watch from a safe distance. Raven sees Octavia push slowly through the people who don’t know she shouldn’t be, moving with grace and caution (a lot like her brother) until she halts. Raven knows Bellamy is concerned, her hands a clenched at her sides and her body pulsating from fear, but Octavia begins to move slowly, swaying to the beat before spontaneous movement breaks from her body free from fear.

Bellamy smiles and Raven beams and Octavia laughs and euphoria is only a dream away except--

Dreams are sometimes nightmares in disguise. Raven sees them from the corner of Bellamy’s eye a second before he does, and her shout is silenced by the incoming storm.

_ An x-class solar flare has begun on the starboard side of The Ark. All citizens must report to the nearest shelter zone immediately. This is not a test. This is a solar flare alert _ .

The announcement fills her ears and Raven knows his mind is consumed with finding Octavia, returning her safely back to their box and never letting her leave again. Raven watches Bellamy anxiously hunt for her and sees Octavia unravel in the distance. Raven is desperate to reach for her but unable to do anything except stand and watch as Octavia moves, disoriented, through the maze of nervous teens jittering on the edges of the room. Bellamy reaches her, finally, and holds her close, but--

“Ladies and gentlemen,” A voice booms and silence falls. “You know the drill. Masks off.”

“Bellamy,” Octavia says, her words wavering with fear. “I want to go home.”

Raven feels Octavia hide behind Bellamy, hiding in his shadow.  _ Brother _ , she thinks, means safe. But the Guardsman is approaching them, and demanding the mask be removed, and Raven can do nothing but watch as Octavia is dragged away, as Bellamy’s profile is pulled up and marked with Perjurer, as he is punished to watch his mother floated, and his sister taken, can only sit in silence when all he sees is gone.

_ Brother _ , she thinks, should’ve meant safe.  _ Raven _ , she knows, means cursed.

  
  


\--

  
  


Anger overwhelms her. At the injustice that Octavia has suffered simply for being born, at Aurora Blake for making Bellamy believe his sister was  _ his _ responsibility instead of her own, at Bellamy, for blocking her out and closing himself off from her regretful pleas. She screams into the darkness, asking for forgiveness; then for retribution. Fight for Octavia, Raven begs, she doesn’t deserve to spend the rest of her life locked away for existing. Give up on me, she cries until her voice is hoarse, but don’t let them hurt her. With balled fists and tear streaked cheeks Raven waits for his reply; but there is only silence.  

After the rage an ache sets into her heart when she beings to feel that he is fading from her mind. The breach grows as she fights against knowing how fiercely she misses his words, his thoughts, his companionship. She realises eventually that he isn’t coming back, not like last time when they found hope. She will never forget being forsaken, and he will never forgive her fear.

Raven learns to exist, then live, again without him (she’s such a stubborn thing). Slowly she feels herself slipping back into who she was before. Stone eyes, dry wit, guarded heart. She allows her work to consume her; returning to her dream to exist among the stars. In the expanse of space silence is a support system, not something to shun her, so she clings to it with all she has and works to sustain the life she needs to lead for her own self-preservation; a little bird with an iron heart.

She gains praise from her superiors, but doesn’t seek to further her rank among the Zero-G engineers. She withdraws further into herself, working long days and late nights and the days, weeks, months pass by until she can’t recall Bellamy’s voice, until his daily movements and routine are no longer the first thing she thinks of in the morning, until he exists only in the back of her mind, a memory that could be a figment of her long lost imagination.

But memory is a fickle thing, and his comes back with a boom, as she watches out over her stars. The light fades away and all she can do is clutch her chest and hold in her screams as she sees Bellamy through flashes so clear and brilliant and real. Bang bang go the bullets as they float into the Chancellor's chest. Bye bye go the children, as they are shoved roughly onto an antique ship.   _ Don’t go _ are the words Raven longs to cry as Bellamy crashes to Earth.

And Raven knows she will fall after him.

 


	3. iii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _The ground, Bellamy discovers as he steps slowly through the tangled forest, is nothing like their ancestors recalled. Nor should it be as ancient ruins and modern cities went up in smoke together, an entire human history wiped clean._ Or Bellamy falls from the sky and a new world order comes to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a while. Sorry about that. This chapter turned out to be much harder to write than anticipated (because let's be honest, Bellamy and Raven are way more enjoyable together then apart, but I digress.) [geckoholic](http://archiveofourown.org/users/geckoholic/pseuds/geckoholic) continues to be my saving grace, and helped pull this chapter together from the scraps that I have written over the last couple of months. 
> 
> All remaining mistakes or errors are mine and mine alone. Title is taken from "The Feel Again (Stay)" by Blue October, and we shall all hope it inspired the next chapter of this story from my mind sooner rather than later.

**iii.**

It occurs to him as they explode then plunge that this may be what it feels like to be floated, in the shortest moment where your conscious is aware of being sucked into the vacuum of space. The sharp pull in his chest; the way his stomach dips then drops, the minimal food he has consumed in the past 24 hours threatens to make a swift appearance. Walking the stars with Raven hadn’t been like this, fear constricting a heart, but then nothing in his life would be what it is if he hadn’t found Raven. Octavia would be safe below the floor instead of fighting for her right to survive. Blood wouldn’t be latching onto his soul after the stains had been hastily scrubbed from his skin. He wouldn’t be hurtling to Earth in an ancient dropship just to fulfill the only task his mother gave him: _your sister, your responsibility._

Bellamy is yet to see Octavia in the throngs of youth currently crying, screaming, or, for the more sadistic kids, laughing. He was shoved aboard the ship at the very last minute, and told to stay silent and still. Surrounded by children, teenagers (all far too young); cattle being shipped to earth for the slaughter. He can’t help but recall the words Kane had thrown at him after Octavia had been taken, after Aurora had been floated. _Rules are rules, Blake. Without them we can’t survive_.

He’d lived his life by the rules designed long before his birth. Rules of the few who that controlled the many, destined to control his actions long after they had perished. The uncovering of Octavia may have forced his hand, he thinks, the ship rocking roughly as it hurtles through space. Then harshly (all at once) Bellamy understands he was destined for this end. _Brother_ , he thinks to himself, means death.

The Chancellor graces the screen and Bellamy feels guilt twist in his chest like a knife. Around him kids hurl words at the screen in anger and defeat, and Jaha fails to sell them on their second chance. They are expendable, Bellamy knows, always were. Then there is darkness filled with screams and then nothing.

Except then there’s words, incomprehensible, spoken all at once, a hundred souls whispering and shouting and screaming that they survived. Free from their bonds, they move instantly to the doors, searching for something greater than the world they knew. Bellamy follows quickly, his eyes scanning the faces looking for familiarity, and the closer he gets to the edges, the more his heart pulses with fear.

The throngs of children spy a guard's uniform and freeze instantly. Bellamy searches the cabin when his eyes land on a girl with bright blond hair that clashing against the dirty grey of the ship. He’s seen her before, broadcast over the stations of the Ark, standing next to her Alpha Station parents with a smile that was always so genuine it made him gag. Clarke Griffin, he thinks to himself, his mouth turning downward with the sour taste of authority she’s wielding already as she moves against the flow of bodies, claiming that opening the doors could kill them all. But they were thrown from space with little care, so aren’t they dead already?

He steps forward in an effort to shut her down, but he hears Octavia first; turning to see her weaving her way through the anxious crowd, teetering on edge with expectations of impending doom. All he can think, as she smiles widely, is how much she’s changed. The words slip from his lips as he pulls her against him tightly, his heart constricting then releasing in sharp, shuddered thuds, tension draining as he realises she is here, she is safe, she is loved.

But then the Griffin girl speaks louder and Bellamy turns to meet her, meeting eyes that still glimmer faintly of hope, and for a moment it’s like he’s six years old and holding O tight all night so Aurora can sleep without fear, and it’s almost too much except here, on the ground, Octavia doesn’t have to stay silent anymore and she’s pushing past him to lunge at kids who don’t know the word brother beyond ancient tales. He allows himself a slow breath because on the ground there are no rules, just long dead monarchies and forgotten gods waiting for the new world order to begin.

Octavia launches forward as someone in the distance catcalls about the girl in the floor, but Bellamy is too quick, pulling her back and smirking at her spite.

“It’s not worth it, O.” He murmurs gently, and smiles as she gives him a resolute nod. “How bout we give you something else to be remembered by?” Reaching towards the airlock, he hits the button to open the door, and when it begins shuddering open he sends a silent prayer to mechanics everywhere that it’s still functioning, “Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years.”

A gentle laugh escapes Octavia’s lips as she moves into the light, and he watches from beyond as she steps, then jumps onto the ground, screaming something incomprehensible as the young race past him drinking in their new world. Bellamy moves more slowly through the crowd, towards the exit and into the light. He squints as his eyes adjust, not prepared for the brightness, but as he steps further finds his vision filtered by the world. The trees loom greater than he could have imagined, branches and leaves weaved high together in the sky in a cacophony of green that ignites his mind. Roots wound carefully together like words falling off the page at the beginning of a prologue; this is their story to write, how humanity fell from the sky and rose from the ashes.

But the air is almost suffocating with its sweetness, and he pauses to think of those still trapped in the sky with stale air, their lungs desperate for something they never knew was missing. And he thinks about Raven, the girl in the stars, as he is anchored to earth, and wonders, would she feel it too?

  
  


\--

  
  


The ground, Bellamy discovers as he steps slowly through the tangled forest, is nothing like their ancestors recalled. Nor should it be as ancient ruins and modern cities went up in smoke together, an entire human history wiped clean. And yet, from the ashes rose life all the same, strands of DNA suffocating in gas, connecting with the cause of their destruction, twisting to create the monstrous nature of this new world. It endured; survived, and became something unrecognisable to the children who were born among the stars. The air is thicker, he considers, his lungs labouring slightly in spite of the slow movement he’s making. The further he moves from the clearing through the tangled trees the more he takes in. Brilliant green has given way to faded yellow leaves and burnt orange bark fallen from the canopy to the ground, twisted trunks wound together like wolves howling for freedom, and he wonders, if he cut into their trunks would they bleed too?

“It’s nothing like they said it would be,” He sighs (too used to his words being tethered to her mind) “Nothing at all.”

His eyes catch a glint of blond hair surging forward with mission, running towards the edge of the ravine they have been dropped on, eyes trained on the mountain in the distance with all the knowledge bestowed on her at hand. She is, Bellamy thinks, out of place among the criminals and misfits born with shadows in their hearts who belonged to the lowest echelons of the Ark. They are the children who, when cast to earth, would have only a few to remember their lives. She would be remembered, _will_ be remembered. Somewhere, someone loves this girl enough to search the earth and save her. Somewhere, someone is searching for this girl.

Worse, she is not alone; and the silent companion who stands in her shadow is the first son, born again on god's green earth. If she is a risk, then he is a time bomb, ticking towards Bellamy’s inevitable destruction.

They stand apart, together, equal, above, from those around them, and Bellamy watches as people part when they pass through the throngs of children crying out in happiness for their freedom. Some meet their eyes with contempt, others with awe, but mostly there is fear, because as above so below, make way for the rulers of this brave new world.

It doesn’t shock Bellamy when the kids from the council announce they have been dropped on the wrong mountain. The girl seems intent on starting out across the ridge with nothing more than the paper in her hand, but the first son is more concerned with the state of their ship. Hushed words are spoken between two huddled heads, “Clarke, we can’t just-” the first son groans, but the girl is having none of it. “There’s a radiation-soaked forest between us and our next meal Wells,” She points roughly at what Bellamy believes is a map, her voice steeled determination. “But that’s where we need to go if we want a chance of surviving.”

Bellamy moves towards them, recognising (somewhat begrudgingly) that between the two there is some sense to be made. Part of him believes they weren’t expected to survive the falls, with meagre supplies stashed on board the ship, the group will have to do something, and soon, before they all starve. “Hey,” He says slowly, but the two keep their heads bowed, and his interruption goes unacknowledged. “Hey!” This time he’s louder and it causes the two to turn from their conversation and meet his eyes. “How are you planning on carrying all the food back? There are a hundred kids on the ground, and it’s not likely you two have the right stuff to march it right back.”

“We should all go.” Wells’ answers, but Bellamy shakes his head, because carting a hundred hyper children and teens across a ravine to an unknown location is a stupid idea, especially with the entire unknown that’s facing them. It’s as if Wells can read this rejection on Bellamy’s features because suddenly he’s stepping close and sizing Bellamy up, only to be pulled back by Clarke as she reaches for his elbow.  “There weren’t supposed to be any guards on the ship.” She comments, one eyebrow arching skeptically.  Bellamy wills his face to remain impassive. Finally, he shrugs. “Last minute change. I volunteered myself.” His eyes narrow for a moment, meeting Clarke’s cool gaze. Then more raucously. “Couldn’t let you guys have all the fun!” It draws cheers from some of the kids who are hovering near the trio, and Bellamy smirks at Clarke, who turns back towards the map.

“Not everyone should go.” Clarke mumbles finally, and Bellamy almost chokes with the realisation she agreed with him. “We have no way of knowing what exists between here and there, it could be a suicide mission for all we know.”

“So what do you suggest?” Wells’ asks, and it takes Bellamy a moment to realise that he was being addressed, not Clarke, who is looking at him with all the distant curiosity in the world. “Simple.” Bellamy replies easily. This is what he knows. This is what his books of Ancient Rome and Augustus Cesar have taught him. “We send a scouting party. They come back with proof of food, proof of safety, and then we all go.”

It seems a simple enough plan. But then his world is upturned as Octavia announces she wants to go, and drags two kids along with her, one tall and lean and barely there, the other with absolute uncertainty written across his face. And Bellamy can hardly blame his sister’s desire to escape (the ground is euphoric for delinquents who had very little space to thrive in the sky), to the girl trapped under the floor the ground offers a freedom she’s never known.

Octavia always was a defiant thing and damned if she’s going to follow anyone’s rules when no one else has to. Still, his heart stammers when she brazenly announces she’s following Clarke on her quest because she’s done following orders. Pulling at Octavia’s hand, Bellamy tugs her away from the crowd. His voice is low, aware of ears waiting to listen, eyes staring them down. Bellamy speaks softly to Octavia in half-truths and hushed tones; seeking absolution for the sins he didn’t have a choice in making, refusing to tell her why. Bellamy won’t force her to share the stain of his mistakes. She’s already lived too long thinking she was cursed.

“Do you trust me?” He asks finally, and breathes a sigh of relief when Octavia smiles “Yes.” and he knows then that he will stay, that she will be safe, that he will protect her because what else is there in life, except her?

He nudges his head towards Clarke and Wells (still clinging to Clarke’s side), while the two gangly boys Octavia pushed towards them stand awkwardly near them. “Go.” The word is gentle, causing Octavia to lean up and press a lingering kiss to his lips, which Bellamy savours. Then she’s off without a care in the world, and Bellamy forces himself to stand firm on the ground as she saunters through the tangled tree line all on her own. The boys follow quickly. He gives Clarke a look of indifference, but on impulse grabs Wells’ by the arm and drags him back.

“He stays for insurance.” Bellamy bites out as her eyes widen in shock, “You better bring her back”.

  
  


\--

  
  
  


As the sun begins to dip below the horizon Bellamy relishes in the idea of the world turning enough for the sun to disappear from their view. A haze of pinks and purples melts into yellows and oranges, the sky shading darker as the night wears in. The artificial darkness constructed on the Ark is nothing compared to this, and his first sunset is something he will recall for a long time. But in this darkness, fear and confusion begin to take hold. Kids are slowly coming down from their return-to-earth high; looking for something more substantial to keep them safe. He realises quickly that the secret to his safety lies in gaining trust. And as he thinks of potential alliances he’d need to place himself at the top of the food chain, he hears a familiar voice call his name.

Nathan Miller approaches him in the distance, a wide smile gracing his lips. They knew each other, back on the Ark, and Bellamy is surprised to see him on the ground. Miller had been in the same Cadet training program as him, just a year or two later. They hadn’t exactly hung out on the Ark (as Bellamy lacked time or opportunity to do this), but there had been nods of acknowledgement in hallways, and shared smirks in training, and that was enough for both boys to recognise mateship on the ground. He slaps Bellamy friendly on the back before drawing him into a quick hug.

“Why the fuck would you volunteer for this?” Miller asks gruffly as he steps back, shaking his head as Bellamy laughs (loud, booming) for the first time in weeks.

“Why the fuck not?” Bellamy replies, causing Miller to smirk, and Bellamy to laugh once more.

Miller brings Murphy in tow, who Bellamy decides is ninety percent bat-shit insane, but respects Bellamy for reasons unknown, given he stands in the guards uniform, a figure of authority for aimless souls. They connect, Bellamy thinks, because Murphy could paint a picture with his rants about screwing society and the anarchy of it all is what draws them together. They are all children who have seem too much in their short lives, and have been told no and don’t and stop even more; it’s a thin string that connects them all, but it’s enough, for now.

After Miller and Murphy join his team, it’s surprisingly easy to get the delinquents on his side. A little bit of freedom here, a sprinkle of anarchism there. Then there’s _the voice_. He has that down, after years of guard training, and making sure Octavia knew what was what while keeping her hidden. That voice is deep, with a slight growl that says I am in control, you ride with me and you’ll be fine, you fuck with me and you die.

Except deep in his mind there’s another voice, with gentle inflection in certain places that make it painfully obvious it couldn’t belong to him (and make it agonisingly clear of who he has left behind on the Ark). _Don’t forget the smirk_ , she laughs meanly, and it’s unfair, really, the way he manipulates the memories of Raven’s voice in his mind, distorting fragments to frame her as the villain in his story, the person who compelled him to kill, to fall and to lead with his quiet rage. It’s been six months, almost to the day, since he silenced her from his thoughts. Except her memory persisted in the quiet with words spoken long ago disfiguring in his mind until all that remained was the raw fury of betrayal. Raven became a snide interpreter of Bellamy’s faults, relishing in his failure to protect his sister, delighting in his pain and misery.

He knows the anger that seethes beneath the surface has long been linked to his own feelings of inadequacy, and Raven, he knows, was not the threat in the end. He was. She was simply the catalyst. Except down here with all these scared eyes looking to him for guidance he needs to shut those feelings out, so he uses her once again; allows Raven to become the voice of his darkness he tries to hide as they begin to build their world without rules.

  
  


\--

  


Problems are raised as the last light of day fades. Shelter it seems is something they need. The ship will do for now, but will not comfortably house all the children as time wears on. The warmth of the day lingers in the air, but what, another delinquent throws out, about when it gets colder. The most important issue is raised by Bellamy himself, standing on the edge of the dropship with a view to the other side of the mountain. What else might be living in this world, what might be a threat to us all? Solutions are slowly set in motion to the problems they face and Bellamy considers as he stands to the side, watching Wells successfully light a fire in the centre of the clearing, how different reality was to preconception.

As an excited child he’d attempted to research his heritage, from Ark to Earth, and had managed to draw together half a picture, half a tree, half a legacy. But beg as he might, his mother had remained tight lipped about the other half of him, and it was then he had discovered he would only ever understand half his person. The night he’d told Raven that story he’d felt the tears slide down her cheeks, and his heart had ached to brush them aside, because even if he never knew the other half -- well, the parts he did know had led him to her.

He isn’t sure why that story crosses his mind. On the Ark Bellamy had always felt untethered; as if he was incomplete. It could have been because he only knew half of himself, the other half always destined to be an enigma. With Raven he felt less so, except he knew (because of her joy, because of how she felt when she danced with the cosmos) that there was still something lacking, something still lost.

But here underneath the deep green trees that rise divinely above them, with the dust of the earth beneath his feet, surrounded by quiet and stillness (instead of the constant whirring that had lulled him to sleep for his entire life), he feels the strongest sense of belonging.

Then the rain comes, and the delinquents dance around the fire as water drops fall like kisses from the sky because they are here, yes, I am home.

He turns to see Wells watching on, and sees in his eyes an innate curiosity that Bellamy knows all too well. But there’s something else, in the look. Determination. Something Bellamy can almost admire. There’s devotion (to Clarke, to the Ark, to humanity's future) punctured in the silence, and in a twisted way Bellamy can understand and even appreciate that. After all, he’d killed someone to protect his sister.

In another world, they might have even been friends. But this isn’t another world. This is the world where Wells’ father pushed the button that sucked Bellamy’s mother into space. This is the world where Bellamy’s choice pushed a bullet into Well’s father's chest.

This is the world where _whatever the hell we want_ is sung into the rain that drips onto their faces and races down their bodies, cleansing them of their sins so they can begin anew. This is the new world where nothing is as it seems.

  


\--

  


The scouting party return a day later but look as if they have aged a year, their eyes sunk deep into their sockets, the colour drained from their faces. Breathless, with bruises painting their skin in shades of blue and purple. Octavia is limping, and he sees a makeshift bandage soaked with red wrapped poorly around her thigh, but she shrugs him off as he runs to her because suddenly she’s too old to be protected.

“Wells,” Clarke yells, stumbling through the growth on the edge of their makeshift wall. Wells jumps at the sound of her voice, then runs to greet the party at the gate. “We aren’t alone.” Clarke says finally, as she sets Octavia down carefully. “Something, someone, was there. They heard us coming. Knew we were coming. They took Jasper, speared him right through the chest.” And for the first time since they landed on the ground, Bellamy hears her voice wavering, like the confidence and certainty is leaving her lungs in one long breath.

Raven had once told him their civilisation evolved among the stars; with eyes forever turned back to earth. The destruction of mankind a stain on their souls, passed down from generation to generation, born with the great belief that somehow, someday, their ancestors would fall back to the world and become the salvation of a new civilisation. Somehow in the midst of ashes and smoke they had become the last survivors of the human race.

Except now they know they aren’t.

Amid all of the annihilation life found a way. And their eyes had turned to the stars, seeking solace for what they needed to become. A civilisation starved of sympathy because they had been born between the ruins of the old world and the beginnings of the new. It makes Bellamy wonder how two worlds so far apart can collide so easily, and what the consequences of this collision will cost them all.

(The time will come when they realise there isn’t space for heroes and villains, angels and monsters in this story. That between blinks on the ground there is only room for survivors, and if Bellamy had looked close enough in that moment he would have seen it then. Only he doesn’t, because he’s too busy brewing war.)

Wells stands solid next to Clarke, his arms crossed, his face unreadable, and just lets her breathe until she looks back up, her eyes braced with resolve. “We have to get him back.”

Bellamy laughs from the sidelines, and their heads whip in unison to face him. A scowl forms on his lips at their look of disbelief, his words remains as blunt as ever. “You’re kidding, right?”

He arches an eyebrow, and Clarke shakes her head before responding. “We heard him scream, right before. He’s alive, and you’re just going to leave him out there to what, to die?”

“If it keeps whoever is out there off our back, yeah!” He throws his hands up in frustration, because what he knows is caution. He hears Murphy throw out a couple of select words that Bellamy thinks are meant in support, and see’s Miller nod in agreement from the corner of his eye, and thinks yes, we stick to what we know. Except what Bellamy knows is four walls on a metal spaceship floating in the stars. What he knows is Raven’s voice whispering in his ear about nothing in particular. What he knows is that down here they are on their own, with no way to connect to the stars, no way to defend themselves against an enemy who managed to survive a nuclear war and come out unscathed. What he knows is self-preservation and survival.

But then Octavia limps towards him and pulls him close, telling him he needs to do this, because no one else will be able to, because she believes in him, because this boy who was taken, Jasper, he saved her and now she needs Bellamy to save him, he sighs, resigned. What he knew in the sky can no longer be the sum total of who he will be on the ground.

_Be a hero, Blake,_ he hears Raven mock, more words she had spoken long ago late at night when their secrets spilled easily between two souls twisting in his mind. Of course he would hear her in this moment, because even if he tried to stop, he will never be able to truly shut her out; nor, he finds, does he actually want to. Instead for the first time in months he wishes so very clearly that she was there alongside him; so they could navigate this brave new world, so he could prove her wrong.

(In that moment he still had hope he could be the hero of this story. And hope is sometimes all you need.)

_Find the boy,_ her voice is certain, her words are sure, _then figure the rest out._ He knows, logically, he can’t fight war on two sides. So he picks the lesser of two evils, at least in his mind, because unknown enemy will trump Ark oppression every single time.

“Fine.” Bellamy growls finally, stepping towards Clarke and Wells, who have been bunched together speaking in whispered tones. His movement causes them to push apart, their eyes meeting his simultaneously with an acknowledgement that they are in this together, (whether they asked for it or not). Together, they make the decisions. Together, they protect their people.

“We go after him.” The words fall slowly (unsure) from Bellamy’s lips; Well’s nods grimly and Clarke let’s out a relieved sigh. “We get him back. Then we find out everything we can about the people who survived on the ground.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More is coming. I am currently engaged with several other writing projects that will probably keep me occupied until September, but never fear, the story is far from over. It's just, figuring out which direction to take, and where to end.


	4. iv.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _She sleeps then, and dreams of a boy who is almost a man with a smattering of freckles and soft dark curls stepping tentatively from cold metal to a ground softer than they imagined. Wild trees tower above, branches and vines entwined like arms shading these young bright souls from harm; air heavy in his lungs. She dreams that he sighs with a sad glance to the sky._
> 
> _Then she dreams nothing at all._
> 
> or Raven searches for a way to fall too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Long time, no update, but here is the good news: I am determined to get this done and dusted, and am one and a half chapters away from completion. So fingers crossed in the coming months it will be so. 
> 
> Shoutout to geckoholic for being an amazing sounding board & beta. Any further errors belong to me and me alone, and I am sorry for their presence.

**iv.**

Patience was never a virtue Raven had time for, not when there was so much to learn, so very many things to do and such little time to do it in. Sitting never came easily to a body whose nimble hands were always at work, and keeping quiet happened less so, because who, what, where, when and _why_ were always about to burst from her lips. Curiosity got the better of her as a child, and eventually it had been channelled into her work as a growing teen; Sinclair had seen to that, seen that she’d had somewhere safe to ask questions and find answers that broadened her mind.

 Which is why, five hours, twenty-one minutes and forty-three seconds after her world spun and shattered completely off axis, any remaining patience has frayed thinner than the blanket that’s currently lying across her bed. For a moment she contemplates laying down, closing her eyes and hoping her mind shuts off to get a minute of sleep; she’s got a space walk in an hour, and at the moment she _knows_ she’s too keyed up to concentrate on anything.

Except plans keep running through her mind. Strategies to seek out answers to the multitude of questions that keep surfacing over and over: why were they sent to Earth now? Who decided the chosen few for the mission? How did Bellamy buy his way on to the ship?

And the thought she keeps pushing down even as it threatens to rise time and time again, like bile stuck in her throat: how will they survive?

Raven knows (as well as anyone born in space) that the Ark wasn’t scheduled to descend to Earth for another almost hundred years. And she comprehends the science behind nuclear fusion, behind atomic destruction better than most; the havoc, the _devastation_ that could still be seeping its way through the depths of the world, and with no survivors on the ground, Raven knows there is no way of telling where the ruin will end.

These haunting thoughts keep her company, as she moves from her bunk (small, unkept, forgotten in the time it’s taken for Bellamy to fall to earth and possibly from existence) to the Zero G Centre, going through the motions automatically as she pulls her suit over her clothes, takes the helmet from Sinclair, shuffles to the edge of the Ark and feels herself launched into space.

It should jolt her, the shock of suction into quiet silence. The way her stomach falls from under her until she releases the breath she holds each and every time. But today it’s like the air is already long gone from her lungs, like Raven is nothing more than a husk of a person who no longer knows how to be; the quiet, she could live with, because she knows in her heart that he’s still tethered to some inexplicable part of her soul, but the emptiness his absence has left behind is a void too deep to fill.

Any adrenaline she felt before, as she paced her room and thought up questions for which she would never receive answers, is replaced now by a quiet fear. Words garble through her headset, hands set to tasks without question, her body moving mechanically through the movements while her mind shuts down, because out in the nothingness of space she has time (too much too soon) to consider that Bellamy might actually be gone. Dead. No longer on this plane of existence. If he’s not on the other end of their psychic line, then maybe he’s not there at all.

“Reyes, you’re coming in.” Sinclair’s voice is strong and harsh, harsher than she’s heard before, and it pulls her back to the task at hand. She can’t have been out here for long, definitely not long enough to complete the quota of tasks that need doing. For a minute she feels her cheeks redden with guilt; Sinclair risked a lot to get her put back into this program, and for the first time (maybe ever) she’s let him down. It’s disappointing, because she _should_ be better than this; better than a broken heart breaking her down.

Except as she falls from space in twists and turns and her feet touch the ground, she can see concern on his face. He can tell, Raven realises, that something is not right. Worse, that something is fundamentally and completely wrong. And it makes her heart ache in her chest because she hasn’t had someone fear for her in six months since Bellamy and she-- and it’s just, overwhelming, to know that someone somewhere on this space ship does.

Sinclair pulls Raven aside, as soon as she’s been stripped down for parts- (and it feels like she’s shelving everything of who she was until yesterday afternoon so the cracks can finally show) and drags her to the back of the room. Somewhere in the background she can hear anguished cries, and it takes her entirely too long to realise the sobs are falling from her wrecked body, heaving heavily towards the ground. Sinclair crowds her, shields her from judgement and clears the room without question, lets her body rock against his for who knows how long until the tears subside, and all that remains is the occasional hiccup between whimpers.

Still, he doesn’t speak. Just waits until she’s ready. Until it tumbles from her mouth, unexpected and untamed.

“I know they launched a ship to the ground. I know there were people on it. Kids, just like me.” And it feels like a cathartic release of every sin she’s ever sinned, etched deep within her bones. She feels him stiffen in his embrace, and pull back, his body shifting to the floor next to her.

There is a pause between them, and Raven can see the response being formed, slowly, with all the care in the world because, “And if there was a ship that was launched, what would it be to you?”

It’s a question, as simple as that, with a hint of confusion and a side of concern. She sniffles quietly, pushing her nose against the edge of her sleeve before meeting his eyes.

“Because _he_ was on that ship, and I need to know that he’s okay.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Here’s the thing about Jacapo Sinclair: Raven knows he sees things, sees more than he’s ever let on. She wasn’t crazy, when she saw Bellamy through her eyes.

But--

Sometimes it might have looked like she _was_ crazy. All those nights she’d spent stuck in the corner of their engineering workshop, muttering to Bellamy, muttering to herself. And before Octavia, before the drop in her gut and the tear of her heart, she’d seen Sinclair watching, waiting, considering.

So she’d told him, back when he’d come to her and told her that there was no way a heart murmur would stop him from letting her complete Zero G training.

Well, she’d sort of told him. It’d come out in fragments, like pieces of the puzzle. Memories, about a boy in her mind, a boy on the Ark, a boy made of flesh and bone as real as she was right there and then, who shared her sight and admired her mind and who might just have loved her soul.

She told him because she needed someone in this world to trust, who wasn’t a voice on the edge of her mind, who was there, with her, all flesh and bone and a reality.

She told him because she wanted someone to know.

And he’d turned to her and smiled. It hadn’t been a bright smile; it was sad, and filled with more than a little sorrow, but it still reached his eyes, and warmed her heart. _We chosen few. We special few._ That’s what Sinclair had whispered to her with the ghost of mystery fading from his lips. And Raven knew, then, that she and Bellamy, they weren’t alone.

(Once, she tried to press Sinclair on what he’d meant, but when the words had fallen, mixed, quiet, uncertain from her lips, he’d only smiled and shaken his head, ushering her from his office back to her workbench with soft hands, pressing a fleeting kiss to her temple before sighing, _a story for another day_.

She protested, instantly, sulking like some petulant teenager, but the twinkle in his eyes had laughed it off, and he had muttered with false annoyance, ‘ _Back to work Reyes’_ , and waltzed from her space. Maybe she should have heeded his words and waited, patiently, for the right time for the long tale, except--

It gnawed at her, this secret that she was part of but not privy to. And patience was never her virtue.

Raven researched, as best she could, after hours in her workshop lit by fading lights, this phenomenon she and Bellamy shared. But it was fruitless; nothing appeared, and it was as if the events occurring to her mind and body and soul were meant to be hers, and his, and theirs alone.

And maybe that’s how it had been for anyone who had come before them; something to be shared between two people linked forever, till death do they--

Bellamy had laughed at her then, at the idea of their fragility falling between them. But that had been before the mask, before good intentions led to silence and anger and everything had come undone.)

Except as Raven feels her body being lifted (easily, weightless, like gliding through space) and placed tenderly down onto a cot, she swears she can hear the hushed ancient tale of a soul split in two by a heartache it couldn’t bear; and the words of a curse, whispered against her forehead, uttered in anger, felt in rage, that those two halves would move, restless, between bodies and souls, linked for eternity together yet forever apart.

How sad, she thinks, lids falling heavily over her eyes, to be damned enough to never know your other half.

She sleeps then, and dreams of a boy who is almost a man with a smattering of freckles and soft dark curls stepping tentatively from cold metal to a ground softer than they imagined. Wild trees tower above, branches and vines entwined like arms shading these young bright souls from harm; air heavy in his lungs. She dreams that he sighs with a sad glance to the sky.

Then she dreams nothing at all.

 

 

\--

 

 

When she wakes it’s to the sound of her name being shrieked repeatedly over the intercom and a face damp with tears; dreams are fickle, she thinks as she presses her face into the pillow beneath her and unleashes a scream, they tread a coil of hope around your chest before pulling it tight and wrenching it back until only darkness remains.

Eventually though, there is nothing left to scream so she ambles from the cot to the comm, slowly moves towards the noise. It’s disorienting at first, as she attempts to recall the events from the previous twenty-four hours, but even that makes her heart ache with confusion. Instead, she flicks the comm on and replies hoarsely, “Alright, alright. I got it,” rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her body slumps with exhaustion. “Maintenance check needed in the control room. Calm your jets, I will be there in five minutes.”

The first breath is shaky, the second stronger, and by the third it finally begins to feel like air is filling her lungs again, until she feels ready, able, to face the day.

(It takes her ten minutes, rather than five, to arrive at the epicentre of the Ark. Though as it turns out, no one is really paying attention to that after all.)

“Hey, someone called for a mechanic?” she asks, stepping from the quiet hallway into chaos. There’s bodies in here, more than she can recall ever seeing at any one time -- especially given that it takes three, maybe four people to monitor the major systems of the Ark. It’s automated, see, has been for years -- everything set to timers because that’s what the monotony of rotation around the Earth can allow you to do, can challenge you to do. And brighter minds than even hers had forged the Ark long ago, so who were they to mess with plans of people long gone?

Only now, in the room, she notices ten, twenty people; high ranking in their various fields, standing and staring endlessly at what could be a hundred different images, flitting across screens that take up the wall, which look -- Raven feels her breath catch in her throat as she takes advantage of the noise to step closer; closer and closer until she can see, up close and personal the pictures of faces she’d seen so vividly only a day before. It may have been for the briefest of seconds, but she knows the scared eyes and quiet cries are seared into her mind.

A hundred images. A hundred souls. Sealed in a shuttle bound for hell.

A hundred kids and almost all are alive.

Scouring the board, her eyes land on the name she knows will lead her to him. Only one of the many becomes wise to the teen that shouldn’t be here, and pulls at her arm. “You shouldn’t be here.” he says, and drives her towards the door. For a moment, she pushes back, eyes trained to the board above, but then goes slack in his arms and shuffles with the help. It’s not until she’s in the corridor that she exhales, shakily, her knees buckling as she slides down the wall.

One name. She had needed one name. And in the darkness she can see it glaring back at her with the weight of the world. _Octavia Blake. Age: 16. Heart rate: steady._

She’s alive. Which means Bellamy is too.

(And in that moment, she knows, _knows_ she would feel it, if he had been ripped from her world. They are separated, yes, but Raven can feel it again, the quiet hum of him, dormant in her heart.)

So, she steals herself against the cool metal and stands, firm; a plan already formulating in her mind.

 

 

\--

 

 

Raven finds Sinclair in his bunk. He was asleep, she assumes, because of the way he yawns groggily before motioning for her to enter. She, on the other hand, has found her second (third, fourth) wind of energy, having spent half the day searching for what she needed, and the other half figuring out just how much stealth they would need to pull this off.

It’s they, of course, because she can’t do it alone. And can’t leave him being, either. So she plans, because she’s good at that, and goes to him only when she’s ready to begin.

“I’m going to the ground,” she starts, as Sinclair sits back into a chair, rubbing his eyes once more. Raven waits, almost patiently, for a reaction, because if she’d said this to any other soul aboard the Ark she would have been mocked mercilessly for her stupidity. (Don’t you know we can’t just go to the ground; she’d thought, preparing retorts to things he might say, don’t you know it’s not safe?)

Instead there is silence, and Raven is startled momentarily before warmth spreads through her chest. Sinclair had always believed in her, why would he stop now?

“There’s an escape pod, sitting in the lowest level of Mecha station. Salvaged, I think, from Mir-3 in 2102.” Sinclair’s eyebrows raise at this, because maybe he might’ve known it was there, but Raven knows for sure she sure as hell doesn’t have the clearance to.

Desperate times, she thinks. “It’s old, but from the diagnostics it’s sturdy. And, more importantly, the shell is complete. I’m going to fix it. And then I’m using it to get to Earth to save him.”

There’s a quiet confidence in her tone that doesn’t falter, and she can tell Sinclair recognises this as he composes a response. She can see the way his chest is rising and falling steadily, but his eyes are flitting to her and back to the diagrams she has shoved, haphazardly, into his hands.

“I suppose the only question remaining is when?” He responds eventually, and she feels a bright smile form on her lips as she surges to hug him. It’s brief, but still long enough for his arms to pull around her body and pat her back awkwardly, unused to such displays of affection.

When she pulls back, the smile remains. “I’ve figured that out too.”

 

 

\--

 

 

Eight days. She has given herself eight days, until the Ark lines up with a trajectory similar to that of the Dropship that was launched; a trajectory that will catapult her to him. She works endlessly under the guise of darkness, Sinclair covering for her, always, his little bird searching to spread her wings and finally, finally fly. He’s proud, she realises with a jolt, one night when she slips back into the workshop and finds him curled in the cot in the corner, proud that she’s fighting for what she wants, what she knows, what she believes.

Proud, because someone should be, and he might be all she has in this world.

The thought pushes to mind another that sits, lingering, ready to pounce when she least expects it. The thought that makes her head burn and her chest tense and her heart hurt. The thought that, even if she falls from the sky and lands on the ground and find him, that he still won’t need her, want her; not in the way she hungers for him, maybe not at all.

But she squashes it back, down down down, like she has every other time it’s surfaced, because this is something she _has_ to do, and in the end if she walks away, at least she’ll know he’s alive, that he’s okay.

She has a goal, a task, and she’s sticking with it until it’s done, because that’s the kind of person Raven Reyes is.

But she really should have known better. When has anything she’d ever wanted in life gone to plan?

She’s two days in when an announcement fills her ears.

_Bellamy Blake is wanted for questioning in regards to the shooting of Chancellor Jaha. Anyone with knowledge of his whereabouts should report it to the Guard immediately. Anyone found protecting him will be subject to an inquiry the penalty of which, should they be found guilty, will be death by floating._

“Oh Bellamy,” Raven sighs before her hands reach deftly for the next piece she’s stitching back together, moving at a fevered pace because now they know, and that could mean the end of everything. “This is not good at all.”

By day three she has the hull welded together as best she can, hunting for scraps of metal in the storeroom when she hopes no one is looking. Metal, she can find, that’s the easy part. Harder though, are the parts she needs to make the pod float and fly and land and keep her in one piece. Those are what she’ll struggle to find.

“I can’t--” She’s watching Sinclair inspect her work, fiddling with parts on a bench to the side. It was what she’d been able to pull together without raising suspicions with the other mechanics in her section. “There isn’t a pressure regulator, and without that--” She trails off when she meets his eyes, and is overwhelmed with the look he gives her; sadness and pride, all rolled into one.

“You won’t survive.” He finishes for her with a shake of his head. There’s a pause, and Raven watches his eyes flick to the pieces in front of her, cataloguing what she has and what she needs. A small smile graces her lips, because in some ways, she’s just like him. There’s always calculation before risk, and Sinclair is currently considering just how much risk is involved in their effort to get her to Earth.

Eventually he sighs. And she knows instinctively that the calculation hasn’t come out in her favour; it’s unlikely it ever would. Without these intricate pieces fitted back together like some kind of hacksaw puzzle the pod is nothing but an empty shell, and no matter how hard Raven would try, a shell won’t save your life.

“This boy--” Sinclair begins, and Raven closes her eyes and wills him to leave the words unfinished between them.

“I just,” Raven reaches to push tears from her face, furious with the betrayal of her emotions when there’s so much to do. “I _need_ to know he’s okay.” A sob leaves her chest as she deflates and falls back against the chair, grateful for its presence holding her up, because right now nothing else is. Half her heart is a million miles away, and all she can feel when she’s not working is the dull ache of that distance pushing her further and further from --

Sinclair kneels beside her and Raven looks up to meet his eyes. “Little bird,” he whispers softly, reaching out and pushing away stray pieces of hair that have fallen from her ponytail. “If you feel him here,” he continues, pointing to her chest. “Then he is okay.”

Raven nods, mutely, and breathes so deeply she fears her lungs may burst. He is there. He is alive. She knows it, feels it like a promise buried far down in her heart.

“However, the question remains” Sinclair continues, pulling her from the chair towards the pod. “For how long will that be the case?”   

It’s true, she realises, and it jolts something free inside her mind; Raven knows (from Sinclair’s access to high priority news alerts) that contact with the ground the council hoped to have has not happened. She imagines, of course, that between the re-entry through the atmosphere, and probably uncontrolled landing, the ships major support systems have likely been fried.

She remembers, in vivid detail, those young, scared faces of kids who didn’t know any better, and she knows then they need something else. Something more.

Someone like her.

Tightening her ponytail, she locks eyes with Sinclair and nods, once, because as much as she needs to do this, the thing that really matters is this: that she _can_.

And she could. If she had the next five days to get everything prepared.

But here’s the thing about plans and fate: they never really did see eye to eye.

It takes her less time than she thought to ensure the radio is up to scratch. Communicating with Sinclair is her second priority, once she reaches the ground and finds Bellamy. Not just to keep him safe (he could be floated for helping her do this), but to make sure those on the Ark know their children are okay.

(Just because her own mother couldn’t love her doesn’t mean all parents are the same. Besides, she’s come to realise family doesn’t have to mean blood. Family can mean so much more, if only you let it.)

But the pressure regulator is still causing her problems, and with those problems comes anger and doubt, filled with what if’s and maybes. It’s hard and frustrating, and challenging Raven like she’s never been challenged before. Still, there’s time on her side, and if anyone could create this part, it’s the youngest Zero G Mechanic in fifty-two years…

Except later, when she’s half asleep at her work desk, fingers twisting at the wires with aimless abandon, Sinclair appears, breathless, with wild eyes. It startles her and subdues her into silence as he moves towards her and pulls, drags her with abandon from her chair towards the pod.

He’s nervous, she can tell, from the way his eyes continue to glance between her and the door, which creaks and cracks and causes him to jump when he bumps into the pod.

“Raven,” he starts, then a shout, somewhere in the distance causes him to swallow quickly. “Raven, listen to me.” She nods wordlessly but keeps glancing towards the door, because if Sinclair, the person she knows is most put together in her world, is this skittish then _something_ must be wrong.

And while fear begins to knot in her stomach, Sinclair takes her face in his hands and pulls until she locks her eyes into his. “We’re out of time. They are out of time. You have to go, now, launch this ship and don’t look back, no matter what.”

He’s expecting a response. Logically, Raven knows this. But her heart is hammering, crushing against her chest, her lungs full of lead holding them down, and her head is full of fear.

She hasn’t done enough. She hasn’t been enough. She’s let Bellamy down again.

“I can’t--” Raven stutters, but Sinclair is having none of it, shushing her harshly and pushing against her until she meets his eyes again.

“You can Raven. And you must.” She’s enveloped into his arms then, as he crushes her into a hug. “I will give you as much time as possible, but no matter what, you have to promise me.” He pulls back, hands on her shoulders. “Promise me you will survive. I believe in you, Raven Reyes.” Leaning forward he presses a quick, fleeting kiss to her head and then he’s gone, leaving her all alone.

For a moment she stands, shaken, still, but then noises reach her from beyond the corridor and it drives her into action as her eyes dart around the room. There isn’t a pressure regulator, but humans have survived worse with less, and always managed to survive, and then her eyes fall onto the faded suit that’s sat quietly in the corner since her arrival into the room, a reminder of who she is, where she belongs.

“Okay.” She breathes, and springs into action.

A minute, five, ten even, pass. Raven works with all the precision her mentor has instilled in her until finally she is safe, cocooned in the pod. _This is for you,_ she thinks to herself as she closes her eyes, and silently prays for the first time to whichever god (or gods) may be listening.

She pushes the button and feels her stomach flip and turn as the hull of the Ark drops from beneath her and she hurtles towards Earth. It’s terrifying; for a moment, until she remembers that she’s a spacewalker, and adrenaline breaks through and the exhilaration takes hold. She thinks in that moment, of Bellamy, with his brown eyes and dark curls, and of Sinclair, with his absolute faith. She wishes against hope, as she falls and falls and falls, that she’ll live long enough to see them again.

And then as the world she’s plunging towards grows bigger and darker and softer and truer, her heartbeat quickens and her chest starts hurting and all she can think is _Bellamy_ before earth fades from green and brown and there to black.


	5. v.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _He is woken as she speaks his name, a prayer falling from her lips as she falls and falls and falls through darkness into silence._
> 
> or Bellamy feels Raven as she comes after him, and must rely on an unexpected ally to find her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive thanks to geckoholic for being an amazing sounding board & beta: this chapter would have taken a lot longer to be published without her support. Any further errors belong to me and me alone, and I am sorry for their presence.

**v.**

On their second day on the ground, Bellamy leads a group of kids into the unknown where they find Jasper tied to a tree like an ancient ritual sacrifice: a lamb hung out for slaughter. He works with Wells and Miller, tearing at the ties then pulling him free, and eventually takes down a beast that, given a chance, probably would have killed them all.

Later that night, having returned victorious, the children of the Ark eat like gods, juices of the mutated monster pouring past their lips, shouts of laughter rising from their bellies, and for the smallest fraction of a moment hope dwells loud and proud in their hearts.

Bellamy sits and watches, dancing and drinking and merriment washing over him. Octavia smiles, happy to have her brother back, happy to know he’s worked with the others to save the day, and even the Griffin girl and her trusty sidekick spare a laugh for the land they now call home.

Maybe, he thinks, looking wistfully to the stars above him (and, without really meaning to, thinking of her), they just might be able to survive.

Except as with all things in Bellamy’s life, the calm can only exist for so long, and on their third day on the ground they discover that treachery lies, unsuspecting, dormant, hidden in places they would never think to look. And it’s far more dangerous than they ever could have anticipated.

“Jasper’s wounds aren’t healing.” Monty says roughly, unashamedly pushing Bellamy back as he tries to remove himself from the conversation. He did what was needed, and rescued the kid from the clutches of Hades himself, but now he’s expected to continue to _care_. “You need to do something about it.”

Monty is brave, Bellamy will give him that. Except, “What would you have me do?” His reply sounds exasperated, even to his own ears, because he is: despite their current situation, who knows what exists outside their makeshift wall, and Bellamy banks that as soon as they step outside something much worse might come for them. “The _Chancellor_ didn’t exactly stock the dropship up with all the essentials.” He says snidely, throwing a glare towards Wells and the Griffin girl, who roll their eyes in unison.  “I can’t magic medicine from thin air.”

“But you can let us find something that will help.” Wells replies, stepping in front of Monty and pushing into Bellamy’s space. It startles him momentarily, and he sees Wells smirk form, ever so slightly, when he realises that he hasn’t managed to regain his nonchalant façade quite as quickly as he hoped.

“Okay.” Bellamy says, matching the smirk when Wells realises that he’s not going to even try to put up a fight. “What do you need me to do?”

 

 

\--

 

 

Wells takes Bellamy on a mission to find an old remedy, something to cure Jasper of the infection that’s growing steadily within him. “Seaweed,” he’d told them, “that only I can find.” And while it begins simply enough, eventually it becomes taxing on those whose limbs are used to walking in straight even lines along cold metal hulls.

The landscape of Earth is unforgiving, falling away to nothing where the ground should have existed straight to the horizon, rising in steep and uneven bounds when it should be flat and certain; crumbling and disintegrating beneath their feet with each step forward and backward until only powder remains.

And then fog arrives; with an acid soaked mist that devours the skin.

Together they spend a half the night trapped in terse silence, Bellamy awake and alert, Wells eyes locked with his in battle. With the elevated levels of distrust there’s little sleep to be had, especially not when something so deadly wages a war just outside this makeshift room, and both are worried (though neither will admit it) about the safety of those they were separated from, and those they left alone at camp.

Eventually though, something breaks between them. Perhaps it’s the threat of imminent death, perhaps it’s because neither of them feel sure about the hierarchy of this brave new world. Maybe it’s just that something splinters so loudly that they both jump, and push their way from the edges of the cavern to look tentatively outside.

“I didn’t expect it to be this loud.” Bellamy hears Wells murmur under his breath.

It could be that he’s talking to himself, but Bellamy, sleep deprived and strained, having faced one threat after the next, finds himself nodding in agreement.

“And unpredictable. On the Ark you could live your life based on noises you heard. They were always there, always at the same time,” he pauses then, because the words have tumbled out and he knows now he can’t take them back. “I didn’t think I’d miss it, but—"

“It’s hard not to.” Wells agrees, and Bellamy lets out a sharp laugh, because there is a great dramatic irony in his finding something in common with the kid whose father he shot dead.

And yeah, maybe he did miss some parts of the Ark. But the sobering thought of the bullet pushing through Chancellor Jaha’s chest reminds him that Octavia was forced to grow up hiding under floorboards, that his mother’s final tearful goodbye demanded he repeat after her: my sister, my responsibility, before she was sucked, tear stained cheeks and all, into the vacuum of space.

He and the Chancellors kid might think the same thing, once, but that’s really where their similarities die.

So Bellamy retreats back to a corner, stony silence surrounding him again. And Wells gets the point, because soon enough he too is slumped back against the wall, with only the whistling echoes of the wind outside keeping them company for the rest of the night.

Still. They survive. And as they move swiftly through the harsh forest back to camp, Bellamy must admit (albeit begrudgingly) that Wells may have a place among them as a leader, for all the skills he brings. Whatever tracks they may have left behind on their trek the day before have been demolished over night by whatever the fog contained within it, and yet they return faster than they left, men on a mission to ensure the survival of more than themselves.

And when they are met on the edges of camp by relieved faces, drawn long from a restless night, but safe all the same, tension lifts between the two as they realise they have done what is necessary to endure. That night there is laughter between the silence, loud, booming, joyous. Five days and counting, and they are still here, they are still alive.

Gods and kings among this ancient landscape. Conquerors of the ground.

Yet.

He is woken as she speaks his name, a prayer falling from her lips as she falls and falls and falls through darkness into silence. He can see it, (more clearly than anything before), the harsh metal blazing and burning around her; can feel her heart pounding and swooping and dropping from her chest, and he clutches at his own because he can think of nothing else to do.

She is coming, drifting, booming to earth, and it takes shouts (loud, roaring screams) to pull him from his makeshift bed into the cool morning air, takes cries of a falling star to drag his eyes to the heavens to watch as she speeds closer and closer and then crashes into the horizon.

And he knows with a start, as the shouts quieten back to murmurs then silence, and the sun breaks in the distance and the dark black of the sky lights up with rays of pink and yellow and orange tendrils that he has one last person to find and keep safe.

“Get up.” Bellamy growls, pulling the tent open and kicking Wells in the foot. He waits, briefly, for the shock to swell on Wells’ face to settle into slight confusion, before tossing a jacket towards the man. “I need your help.”

 

 

\--

 

 

They stand together in the quiet, stuck in stalemate until five, ten, fifteen minutes have passed. Bellamy is staring pointedly at the map, but he can feel Wells’ gaze on his face, trying, attempting, to read his expression. He’s already woken Miller up, let him know that he and Wells’ will be heading out of camp within the hour, and that he’s to keep the kids in line, and that if they aren’t back by tomorrow he shouldn’t send a secondary party out after them.

If Miller has an adverse reaction to the command he hides it well, replying with a quick, unobtrusive nod before leaving the tent and moving out into the shadows of the early morning. Bellamy knows that if, for whatever reason, they don’t return Miller will act the soldier and keep his word and, more importantly, keep the kids on the ground as safe as he can.

It’s only when Clarke and Octavia burst into the tent where Bellamy and Wells stand that the plan begins to get complicated.

“Miller said you’re leaving--” Octavia starts, as Clarke cries, “You can’t just tell people what to do,” and Bellamy has to fight everything within him to avoid rolling his eyes. Clarke is worried for Wells, that much is clear, and despite the fact he disagrees with almost everything that leaves her mouth, the underlying fear is something he understands well.

“Someone came after us.” Bellamy begins, which causes all three to turn and stare at him in confusion. “From the Ark.” He adds, refusing to meet their eyes. “A ship came down this morning, and we need to get to--” He pauses, her name thick on his lips, but refusing to push past them. “We need to get to whoever was in there before someone else--”

“Or something else does.” Clarke finishes for him, and when he meets her eyes he can see it then, the realisation that this isn’t just for him. This is for them all.

“How do you know it was someone from the Ark?” Wells asks finally, his voice rich with suspicion. Which is only fair, that much Bellamy understands. If blind faith was all _he_ was being asked to leave on, then he damn well would be staying put.

And it gives him pause, because with everything that’s happened with Raven, he’s never voiced the feeling to another living soul. Except for her. And even that was different because when he felt it, she felt it too. And he knew instinctively that she would understand whatever he would say. They were absolute, and unconditional, and he knows, deep down, that even if she can’t tell him why, she came to earth for him.

Eventually, he hears Octavia, quietly, from behind Clarke and Wells and their expectant looks. “It’s her, isn’t it?” Her words are soft, but they still punch him in the gut, because she may be small and young but she’s fearless and perceptive, and she’s probably always known that Raven was the other person in his heart and world.

When he meets her eyes, and gives her the smallest nod, her face breaks into a brilliant smile, and she pushes past Clarke and Wells and flings herself into his arms. It reminds him instantly that despite the way the world has torn her down she’s just a fifteen-year-old in the end, an innocent whose only crime was being born.

“You need to get her, big brother.” Octavia whispers, pulling him in tightly before pushing back and turning to face the others. “Trust me, if you can’t trust him. There’s someone there he needs to save.” Her voice is stronger than he’s ever heard it, and a swell of pride pushes through his chest. “And he needs your help to do it. He helped Jasper,” she continues, looking between Clarke and Wells, her tone becoming almost pleading. “Now we help him.”

In the breath between heartbeats the room stills into silence, and Bellamy waits, and waits, and waits, until Wells eventually sighs, then nods. “Okay. What do we need to do?”

 

 

\--

 

 

Wells charts a course for them to follow, based on the direction Bellamy points in, and within minutes the camp is fading into the distance behind them. Bellamy sets the pace, quick, hurried, anxious to try and get to her before anything (or anyone) else, and Wells does his best to keep up, but there are moments where the terrain becomes sloped or slippery and it takes them both unawares.

The third time he trips over a hidden tree route, Wells all but begs Bellamy for a breather. And despite his anticipation, Bellamy knows he needs to comply; he needs the kid to get him to Raven as quickly as possible, and he can only do that if he himself remains in one piece. So they sit, against a tree that looms large and tall, and wait in the shade to avoid the heat of a day that threatens to swelter.

Bellamy takes a long sip from the canteen, before offering it up to Wells. He takes it, and for a split second looks grateful, before he remembers that Bellamy is the enemy and not to be trusted. Bellamy finds himself laughing at the way these looks move across his face, which causes Wells to look up and narrow his eyes. He’s just about to suggest they begin moving, to avoid whatever confrontation is brewing, but Wells it too quick for him.

“Hell of a lot of effort you’re going to,” Wells’ voice sounds hoarse, and Bellamy wonders how fast they had really been traveling. “For who? Some girl?” There’s a bite to the words, and Bellamy balls his hands into fists and fights the urge to turn on him. He’s come to realise he doesn’t know much about Wells, and what he thought he did was based on assumptions. For all he knows this could be a ploy, to unhinge Bellamy, then cry foul back at camp to get the delinquents on side.

(And honestly if it is, Bellamy has to admit it’ll give him a little more respect for the kid. It’d be a gutsy move.)

Instead of punching him though, Bellamy just exhales, and shakes his head. “She isn’t just _some girl_ ,” he replies, ignoring the way the words cut at his chest and into his heart. “She’s _more_ than that. She’s soft and hard and rough and smooth.” A smile graces his lips as he remembers the flush on her face when he’d told her, all those years ago, just how he had seen her. “She’s a freaking genius, the smartest person in that floating hell we called home. And she--”

But he pauses there, unable to finish the thought. Raven fell to earth after him. Despite the way he’d shut her out, ignored the tears that streamed during endless apologies. He felt it all. Every beat of her heart, every ache in her chest.

Bellamy had left her behind, let her down like she always feared, and still she came _after_ him; came _for_ him.

Raven Reyes is a lot of things, but most importantly she’s worthy of forgiveness, and a second chance at life, and he’s damn well going to do everything in his power to give that to her.

“She deserves to be saved, and be safe, just like the rest of you,” he finishes, unable to meet Wells eyes for fear he might read the shame in them. “We got a job to do.”

Thankfully Wells meets his words with silence, and stands from the stump he’s sat on to follow the course.

They move quietly but smoothly through the thickened forest, and the faster they move, the quicker they reach her, the less time he has to consider the silence he’s felt since the boom in his chest matched the crash that moved the earth. She can’t be dead, this much he knows -- there is still the pull in the back of his mind that tells him she’s here with him, but there’s darkness, so much darkness, like it’s swallowing her whole, and if he pauses to stop then he stops to guess and --

He just wants to feel the way he did, before; he just wants to feel the weight of her eyes again. To know she is safe, and he is safe, and together they are free.

They round a corner, Bellamy leading Wells, and the dense greenery opens into a clearing where, resting in the center, is the ancient metal hull of a pod, smoking slightly, but otherwise intact and complete. His feet rush forward even as his breath hitches and his heart stops, because there, there is Raven, and he’s getting closer and closer and closer until finally he is there.

Only.

No one smiles back, and his grin feels foolish when greeted with an empty seat. Wells stands directly behind him, and Bellamy waits, expectantly, for the tirade that will follow based on deception stewed with fear. But the words never come, and instead Bellamy feels his legs buckle as he falls to the ground under the gravity of it all.

Raven was there. She called his name. Dropped and tumbled and fought and found her way back to where he was.

But she’s not there, and Bellamy feels his heart beat like erratic drums in his chest as the realisation dawns on him that she might truly be gone.

And all he wishes then is for the shape of her to appear on the horizon, for her voice to sing through his mind and into his soul. Only what crashes down around him is the booming voice of a man, shouting and screaming into his void.

Wells; he remembers now, the boy was there, was waiting to meet this girl they risked a trek for, and instead was greeted with nothing but the empty reminder of what they had left behind. He had been silent, Bellamy was sure. But now there is nothing of that silence around him. Words are spewing from his mouth, and Bellamy shakes himself out of the revere to focus on helping them fall into line.

“Someone was here before us, Bellamy,” Wells utters, as Bellamy stands to face him. “Look; a set of footprints approaching the pod, and then deeper as they move backward, as if extra weight had been added.”

And just like that, his heartbeat slows then steadies, his breathing evens from the sharp intake, and Bellamy looks up to meet Wells eyes. “You need to track them,” he says, eyes quick and bright with hope that lives on in the smallest slivers of light. “We need to get Raven back.”

 

 

\--

 

 

It doesn’t take them long to find a pattern in the tracks. Bellamy watches in awe as Wells moves with finesse from one point to the next, noting treads left on the uneven ground, or small branches that bend in the wrong direction. He travels confidently through the untamed trees, pausing, where necessary, for Bellamy to catch up.

“You’ve been holding out on me.” Bellamy says finally, after another long stretch of movement has left him lost for breath. It hadn’t even been an hour since Wells was in his position, but it’s becoming clearer as the day goes on that Wells is skilled in many things, and the art of deception is one of them.

Wells shrugs in reply, a ghost of a smile gracing his lips. It changes his face, from stoic, to brazen and brave, and Bellamy once again has to admit how much he’s underestimated the Chancellor's son. “I like reading. And chess. Might have taught me a few things.”

“Only a few?” Bellamy feels a small laugh fall from his lips in a huff, as he stands taller in front of the boy. Wells merely matches the stance.

Then, he smirks. “Maybe a little bit more than a few.” He nods his head in the direction they will be moving, and steps forward. “Only time will tell.” With a laugh he’s off, and Bellamy shakes his head before following.

They move like this, swiftly, for another half hour, down a beaten track marked every so often by the stamp of man. If he had a moment to stop and think about it, it would be unnerving for Bellamy to consider how far they have gone from their makeshift home, how far they ventured across this unknown land, how far they will go for the girl in his heart.

Only he doesn’t have time, because Wells halts, suddenly, without reason, and ducks behind a tree yanking Bellamy with him.

“What the he--” Bellamy begins, but Wells wraps his hands over his mouth, motioning for silence. Bellamy nods, and breaths quietly when Wells removes his hands. The boys eyes are sharp and alert, and it puts Bellamy on edge because they are surrounded by dense woodlands, and Wells could have seen anything to set him off.

“They know we’re tracking them.” Wells offers as an answer, peering over the tree trunk down the path. “I’ve been keeping track of their tracks. We have to assume these people have survived on the ground,” he continues, and Bellamy nods  mutely. “With acid fog and mutated animals. Before humans destroyed the world they lived on the land, and learned how to move without being seen.”

“Those humans lived thousands of years ago,” Bellamy begins, because he knows the history of the human race as well, and while there may have been those who tracked smoothly through the wilderness later in life, they haven’t existed in the former United States for an age. “These humans, whatever they are, have existed on this earth for less than a hundred years. Even without the technology like we had on the Ark, they have our base code. They might have existed in the ruins of the world, but they knew what we knew, before we went into space.” A pause, a breath, a consideration.

What had these people on the ground gone through to become who they are?

“To regress to a state that hasn’t been used en masse since well before the world ended is to assume that the survivors have grown from a singular grouping, those who lived on the land and worked with the land, and before the world was destroyed there wasn’t much land left.”

It’s a rant in hushed whispers and heated words, because sometimes, on the Ark, when the world was still and Octavia was safe, Bellamy would have a moment to read. And while his mother shared with him the myths and legends of men turned heroes and heroes turned Gods (and the ultimate price that must always be paid), Bellamy sought to explore the nature of man told by men, shaped by men, doomed by men. And it always led down the same path: men became greedy, men wanted more, men destroyed the world, a tale that his history books and his mother’s mythology had in common.

“Be that as it may,” Wells replies, eyes trained on the horizon: he may not look the part, but part of this boy is a soldier through and through. “There is too much precision in these mistakes. Every twenty steps, a twig is snapped. Every stop in between the half-imprint of a boot. You think they haven’t reverted to Hunter and Gatherer mindsets? How do you think they survived in the wreckage of the world?”

Wells eyes dart around their surroundings, and Bellamy follows suit, and this time he notes the slight thinning of the grass on the ground, the way the trees seem to be spaced evenly, spaciously, ordered precisely like a chess board within the chaos of nature.

“Shit.” Bellamy mutters as he slumps back down against the tree root, his heart deflating in defeat. They were so close. He could feel Raven, there, resting in the back of his mind. He was so fucking close and yet still so damn far.  

“They’ve been here for almost a hundred years,” Wells whispers. “They’ve survived here for almost a hundred years. They might have been like us, once before - but we still don’t know to what extent the radiation affected them.” A sigh, then he shakes his head. “They might be just like us, or they might be very different. The point is we don’t know, and we’ve just followed them into their territory, with no idea how to really get back to ours.”

Bellamy feels his head swim with conflicting thoughts: of Raven, taken by these people, of the people themselves, and what they possibly have had to do to survive in this treacherous world. And it’s all too much for him to consider, given that a week ago he was cocooned, safely, thousands of miles above the earth. Not in his wildest dreams did he imagine he would miss that hell of a hull he called home, and yet --

She had loved the stars, but fallen to earth because she loved him more. And he would raise heaven and hell to get her back.

"Well, what do you suggest we do?” he asks Wells with an eyebrow raised, anger rising in his veins. “Because we came to get Raven, and we’re not going back with--”

“Shh,” Wells says, pressing a finger to his lips, and Bellamy notes how eerily silent the valley has become. Then it hits him out of nowhere, like a sucker punch in his gut. He doubles over as agony seeps across his stomach and into his heart.

In an instant, Wells is on him, checking for wounds that aren’t showing on his skin. His eyes widen, a mixture of puzzlement and fear folding onto his features. “Wha--” he begins, but Bellamy doesn’t have time to explain, truly, how this works.

“Seriously,” he grits out. “We need to do something.” A second punch, this time to the chest, and then it feels like his wrist is being pinned to the ground and sliced open. He hisses in pain.

_Find me_ , he hears her scream in the distance, then booming in his mind. _Find me, find me._ Her body is sobbing uncontrollably, and through her eyes he shifts in and out of a darkened room, lit by candles and cloth and not much else. And she is there and she is breathing but there’s a body, big and dark, shadowed in the distance, and she blinks and screams and disappears from his mind once more, and he feels his body slacken as she disappears from his world once more.

“Please,” Bellamy begs, of no one in particular, because she was there and now she’s not, and even though he can feel her, it’s weak and stilted and fading, and his heart pulls in his chest then, for the anger he has held too close, for the time that they will never get back, for the girl who might just be gone. “She’s hurt, they are hurting her. We need to save her now.”

Meeting his eyes, Bellamy shudders in relief as Wells presses his lips into a thin line but nods, once, noting agreement. With nothing but the ghost of the pain left, Bellamy finds his footing again, and moves closer to the boy.  

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this,” Wells’ mutters under his breath, standing and moving into a clearing while raising his hands in an effort to signal surrender, motioning with his head for Bellamy to follow. “But take us to your leader.”

For a moment they are met with nothing but the sounds of the forest signalling the end of the day, but then, rustling, like a soft breeze, hits Bellamy’s ears, and before he can react he is pushed and pulled and dragged down into darkness.


	6. vi.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Before?” Raven asks, because despite her burning desire to find Bellamy, the fact that the stranger has shifted from his language to English has her curiosity peaked. “Before what?”_
> 
> _He sighs then, and shakes his head with sadness. “Before we destroyed the world.”_
> 
> Raven discovers the ground isn't anything like she imagined it would be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, the penultimate chapter, with the final chapter to follow shortly. So I'll keep this brief, thank you to geckoholic for continuing to be the best sounding board there is. Any errors belong solely to me.

**vi.**

When she wakes for the first time on earth it’s not due to pain or anguish, but rather the softness of a set of lips against her forehead. As the world comes into view she realises it’s a memory, the last she had before she blacked out: Sinclair giving her all the hope in the world, _I believe in you, Raven Reyes_ , and the images remain soft while the hazy landscape stills and sharpens and her aches turn to agony, and as the world falls into shadows and darkens around her, they are the words she dreams of; crooning her to sleep.

The second time she wakes on earth it’s a shock surging through her limbs that draws her into consciousness. It’s dark, she can tell; distinctly different from the inside of a dropship that arrives as the sun was waking up to the world. Dirt crumbles beneath her fingers, and it smells to her of rot and decay; as if death hangs his cape on the edges of the cavern that is closed off from natural light.

No. This new world is lit by fire, and it stirs something in her; something that tells her to _run_.  

She breathes in, shakily, and her lungs fill harshly with dry, stale air. But her stomach protests at the movement, stitched wounds pulling at the seams, and she cries out in pain as she moves. Her eyes sting with tears that begin to pool, and her chest collapses under the weight of the movement and then--

He is there, again. In the back of her mind like he never left. Raven can feel him watching, crying with her, sense his presence in her heart. And as she attempts to push herself into a sitting position, she feels the words fall from her lips, a hushed whisper, a quiet prayer. _Find me_ , she sobs through the throbbing pain.

But then a figure is there, crowding her body, pressing her down down down against the cool dirt floor.

“Ste, strik bird.” A voice surrounds her, smooth and deep and soft, and Raven shakes then sighs as something else takes hold. A mist surrounds her, and she feels herself falling deeper, deeper into darkness.

Her eyes flutter closed, and as the sounds of the forest seep into her mind, she hears words, phrases, foreign to the tongue, yet soothing all the same. “Yu laik klir kom me.”

  
  


\--

  
  


A throbbing in her head wakes her next, and again it takes her moments, minutes, longer for her eyes to focus in the darkness. There’s slightly more light now, a sign that morning could be breaking once more in the outside world, and the dank musk of dirt is less harsh on her palette. Raven briefly considers attempting to flee, but as she moves sharp pain surges through her left side, and she finds herself rendered immobile again.

“Chilla en ste. Yu laik kodon.” A voice, soft, deep, calls from across the cave. Raven twists at the sound, her heart thumping wildly in her chest; the language is different to any she has heard before (and on the Ark she’d heard as many as they’d saved, all those years ago) and yet she feels her rigid body relax at the words because despite the unfamiliarity of them, it feels to her a little like home.

She senses him then, a shadow falling from the darkness and pushing into the light. Broad shoulders, dark skin, but a face so like her own that he cannot be anything other than human. Despite the shadows his eyes are bright and kind, and whatever remaining tension Raven’s body held flushes from her instantly. It’s obvious, from the way he pulled her from the wreckage and moved her to safety that he means her no harm. But then –

“What do you want?” she croaks, her body heaving as she attempts to push herself up, just a little, onto her elbows. It causes her chest to constrict, and her breathing is instantly more laboured. For a moment she struggles, and then he is by her side, hands reaching out too gently. He retrieves a small object and places it under her neck, prompting her to lay back slowly until her head is rested, raised against the pillow-like softness. It’s more comfortable than before, but Raven, used to moving freely on the Ark and in space, still feels caged: something she hasn’t felt in such a long time, and something she never wanted to feel again.

A flash of a smile, bright and big, with a head full of curls and a smattering of freckles floats into her mind, and she can’t help but consider the irony of it all. Bellamy was her freedom, and she was his cage, but it draws to mind a thought that she can’t shake.

“I have to get to him.” She coughs, her throat dry. “I need to know—” But what she needs shouldn’t be the important thing right now. “He needs to be safe.” It’s a demand, rather than a request, with all the energy she can muster. For days now, Bellamy is all that Raven has thought of. And she needs to know she hasn’t come this far to be stopped, not when she is so close she can almost feel the steady drum of his heart.

The man’s brows knit in confusion, then Raven watches as realisation washes over his features, but whatever knowledge he has, he chooses to keep it to himself. Instead, he reacts instead to her obvious discomfort. “Movement will become easier soon.” The words are quiet, spoken soothingly to avoid further distress. “We have herbs here that elevate pain faster than before.”

“Before?” Raven asks, because despite her burning desire to find Bellamy, the fact that the stranger has shifted from his language to English has her curiosity peaked. “Before what?”

He sighs then, and shakes his head with sadness. “Before we destroyed the world.”

  
  


\--

  
  


“Lincoln,” the man says with a small smile. “I am Linkon kum Trikru.” he finishes, reaching out to pass her a sweet-smelling drink in a wooden cup.

Raven accepts the drink with a small smile, placing it down on the dirt floor before shifting restlessly, in an attempt to settle comfortably and avoid pulling her wounds. Eventually she finds herself nestled in the warm fur, fire blazing bright next to her, and she turns again, to meet his eyes.

“I’m Raven. Raven Reyes, of the –” A pause, because really, what could she say to even begin telling Lincoln where she is from.

“Raven Reyes of the Sky,” he supplies with a small smile. “From where you fell, strik bird.”

“Yes,” she nods, “From the sky. Others, too.” Raven meets his eyes, searching for some sense of recognition of Bellamy, of Octavia, of all those hundred children whose profiles she’d seen days ago. “Do you know where they are? I have a –” she stops with hesitation, because what is Bellamy to her. A friend, a lover, the other half of her soul? “There is someone I need to find. Someone I came to earth for.”

Raven knows Lincoln can sense the urgency in her words, the desperation in her tone. For the longest moment he says nothing, eyes threatening to look away. Except then, his head inclines ever so slightly, and she feels relief wash over her limbs. “You know where they are?” she all but cries, her heart constricting with equal parts joy and fear.

“They are safe,” Lincoln says evenly, without looking away. “Most are still with their ship, and a select few,” he pauses when his voice wavers, and he takes a moment to steady his tone, “Have been taken to meet with Anya, the leader of my clan.”

_Bellamy_ , she thinks on instinct, because Lincoln already knows more of her than she of him, and despite the fact it should unsettle her, she just feels relieved. If Bellamy is on his way to meet this… Anya, then he is alive, and he is safe. And Lincoln knows the way to him.

“I need to be there,” Raven begins, pushing the furs back and attempting to push herself up, except it pulls at the wound on her stomach again, and while she bites down on her lip to bear the pain, Lincoln lets out a soft laugh.

“You _will_ be there,” he promises, reaching forward to gently nudge her back into a sitting position. “But you need to rest, and let yourself at least begin to heal.”

And she pouts, even though she knows it’s petulant and childish, because she is _this close_ to him, and yet still, so far.

“Still, strik bird,” he whispers again, and Raven allows her brow to furrow at the words, because now, now she can ask for answers. Now that she is close, and soon she will be with him again.

“What does that mean, strik?” Raven can hear the curiosity in her voice, and smiles as Lincoln lets out a little laugh.

“Little,” he replies, laughing again as Raven huffs, indignant, despite the honesty in his words. “It means little bird.”

  
  


\--

  
  


“You’re human, right?” Raven asks, later, resting still near the fire that has slowly moved from blazing red flames to low orange embers. She’d listened intently to Lincoln’s tale, about his life and his world; their world, she supposes, now that she’s on the ground. Listened as he’d explained the story of the last survivors of the apocalypse, brought together by the flame that had fallen from the stars as the world had burst into a bright blaze.

Humanity had lived. Survived. Endured against all odds, a new society rebuilding itself, reborn amongst the ashes of the old. And all this time those in the sky had believed they were the remaining relics of the human race, desperate to keep a shared history alive.

Lincoln laughs at the question, heartily, and it echoes and booms around her. “Yes, we are human. We are born from mothers, we bleed, just the same as you.” A pause, and a shake of his head. “Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Her mind moves instantly to mutant humans roaming the world, and wonders if those fairy tale legends of zombie apocalypses are closer to his truth than hers.

He nods, then averts his eyes. From their time together, however brief, Raven realises immediately this means the truth that is about to come is something to be braced for. “Nightbloods. We have nightbloods; a chosen few amongst the many, who bleed black as the moonless sky.” Another stop to the conversation, and Raven senses he’s waiting, assessing her for a reaction.

And maybe there would have been one, if she hadn’t fallen to this earth in the hull of an escape pod older than the two of them combined, had she not lived her life on a maze of spaceships circling a desolate planet, had she not been saved by a man who has existed on their world for longer than she has lived –

Had there not been a boy, through whose eyes she’d seen an entirely different world.

She smiles then, tries to make it warm, like Bellamy always did. After all, his heart was always so much bigger than hers. Maybe it’s time she tried to be a little more like him, maybe then he’d want to find her back.

“The Ark, it’s made up of space stations from twelve nations.” Raven bites her lip, pausing. “Twelve countries, from one hundred and ninety-six.” She can hear the sadness in her own words, the pull at the back of her throat which she swallows, meeting Lincoln’s eyes. “There’s two-thousand people, living up there.” Raven continues, pointing up towards the world she left behind. “Two-thousand people, from twelve counties,” Another pause, and she can hear the way the words catch in the back of her throat, the way her breathing shifts, all because, “That’s all we thought was left of the human race...”

Raven trails off, her mind wandering to one of those long ago, half-forgotten conversations she and Bellamy had shared in the quiet, in between moments. Where he’d whispered about intolerance, and how that was what had destroyed the world, long before someone somewhere had pushed a button signalling nuclear meltdown. Intolerance that, despite what was said, had never truly been left behind, could never be left behind when a society that lives in space floats their own for the smallest of infractions.

And although the words had been fuelled by fury, it’s the despair she recalls, laced between each syllable, hidden between breaths. Sadness had always hung heavy on his shoulders, fear had dwelled deep in his mind. Having a sister, when the _word itself_ was forbidden, would root that sorrow and terror deep within a soul.

Yet in the end there was always, _always,_ that twinge of hope.

Well, there _was._ Before she’d taken that away.

Bellamy fills her mind. “Who’s to say what defines a human any more?” Her lips form a smile, and the movement feels so unfamiliar because she hasn’t smiled, not like this, in such a long time, not since –

And yet. She hopes then, for the impossible. Hope’s against hope she will be able to make this right; make _them_ right. And once again feel whole.

Lincoln, for his part, has sat quietly, unobtrusive to her extended pauses. Raven thinks to herself that it must be his way, and perhaps that’s not the way of his people, which would explain the solemn cave that he chooses as a dwelling. By all accounts, everything he has told her about his people highlights they believe in family, found or otherwise, above all else. They work as units, small communities come together to form tribes that coexist peacefully across small pockets of habitable land.

Yet the way he had spoken the word, _Nightblood_ , seemed to curdle something in his chest, and Raven senses there is more to the term than those whose blood is black.

And because in her heart she knows Bellamy is safe, Raven allows herself to swivel until she is entirely more comfortable, and ask Lincoln quietly, “Are you a Nightblood?”

The shock on his features is clear, and Raven allows him the same time he provided her to gather his thoughts. It must be strange for him, to be explaining an entire civilisation to a person who had, until only a day ago, lived their entire life amongst the stars. Stranger still, she suspects, for there to be no contempt between the two parties; rather a collective curiosity that stems from their individual desire to do better, be more, than those who came before them.

“No-” An eventual sigh, as Lincoln shakes his head calmly. “I am not a nightblood. But –” Another pause, and fleetingly Raven recognises the cogs turning in a mind that knows too much of a past that would rather be forsaken.

“The Nightbloods that are born to each generation are taken and trained; then fight for the right to be the next commander.” His voice hitches, as if memories or moments not long lived still weigh heavily on his heart. “Only the strongest survives, and when they are needed, they ascend and take the flame.”

His words swirl in her mind, and she mulls over the phrasing; _fight for the right_ , _only the strongest survives_ , and Raven understands with a start his meaning. That those on the ground, despite access to resources and space and air, have not discarded barbarity either.

“You’ve lost someone.” It falls from her mouth without hesitation, because in his eyes is a pain so profound that she can’t help but recognise it too.

Raven watches on as his body sags under the weight of his thoughts, and she wishes she could do more for this man who had pulled her from a wreckage and, perhaps, saved her life. But all she can offer is a hand, timid, slow, reaching out to take his, as if to say, I know this feeling well, for I have loved and I have lost; you are not alone.

A minute passes with silence, then another, and just as it seems it might engulf the unlikely companions, the words begin to tumble from his lips. Raven rides the wave of his story, of a mother who was little more than a girl who fell in love, deep, gut-wrenching love with a Nightblood man who knew he could never be more than a ghost in her world; but through whose eyes she could see the grandest world. And despite everything love had grown roots in their hearts and while their world existed in a time of peace, they had begun to let themselves dream that their love could become something more.

Except lasting unity became a dream, as war broke out between three of the clans, and her heart was called to war, first as a warrior, then as a Nightblood, to fight to the death for his right to rule. She had watched, hands clasped over her growing belly, as the world through his eyes had been painted red then black and then faded into nothing, and her soul had splintered as he drew his last breath, never to be pieced together again.

Lincoln had been born to a long dead father and an absent mother who had followed her love silently to the grave, grown up alone in a world that treated his father’s sacrifice as heroic rather than heartbreaking; all because of the Nightblood’s call.

But despite his shrewd view of the world, he is kind; Raven can tell, beyond even the kindness he has shown her. It’s the sort of kindness that is deep and true, and holds hope longer than possible. The kind of kindness she’d only ever felt from two people in her life.

“I’m sorry,” she supplies, slowly. Words, she knows, won’t mean much in the end, and yet she still feels the need to let him know that somehow, despite everything that has happened to him, he is not alone.

Just like her.

And like that, a craving overcomes her heart, gnawing deep in her stomach; a desire to see Bellamy, not as a fleeting reflection but as flesh and blood. To hear his laugh without the muffled edge of her own mind standing between them; to watch his smile falter, as it tended to do, each time he caught a glimpse of her own image.

She wanted him to know they were not alone. That Lincoln’s parents had shared their blessing; that Sinclair, she suspected, deep down, had too.

And as if he could read her mind, Lincoln smiles. He moves towards her, extending a hand to help her stand. “It’s time for us to go.”

Lincoln sets a slow pace to cater for Raven’s injured foot, but she wonders if the reason itself isn’t twofold: each moment they walk through the unkempt landscape Raven breathes in a new view of this world that has grown beneath their floating home.

Thick trunks support trees taller than the skyscrapers they were told existed before, higher and higher they go until she can look no further, her neck hurting from looking too high. There’s green everywhere, in as many shades as she could imagine, foliage folding together harmoniously like constellations in a clear night sky.

And as they walk, and Raven takes breaths of air that tastes sweet against her lips, Lincoln pauses, here and there, to point out locations of importance that have grown out of the ashes of the long dead world. His voice has lost the tremble it held while speaking of his past, instead there’s a brightness that Raven clings to, because if Lincoln can claw his way from darkness then maybe, just maybe, there’s hope for her too.

“Where are we going?” she finds herself asking, an hour into their trek, noting that the path they are following has become clearer, wider, deeper, worn well into the landscape. It’s a passage that has been used time and time again, a track for wandering warriors to find their way home.

Lincoln knows it well, if the way his posture relaxes slowly is any indication. Finally, he smiles towards her, and she is struck by the way it transforms his sullen face. “Osir laik going houm.”

“Translation?” Raven requests when he pulls her to her feet, and she leans unsurely, gently into his side.

Another laugh leaves his lips, and Raven smiles at the way it transforms his face.

“We are going home.”

  
  


\--

  
  


Her movement is limited, so it takes her time to find her rhythm, but once she does, Raven finds herself able to walk at the same time as taking in the world around her. She can remember faded pictures flitting across screens on the Ark, sprawling cities, with buildings that grew to the clouds; but here, in the world reborn, it is trees that reach the sky, a canopy of green and brown humming with life above her head.

It’s a different ground to anything she could possibly have imagined, although she never really spent time dreaming of the world below. Her mind was always mixed up in equations and solving the problems that came from living in the stars, so instead of comparing it to the geographical history she has long since forgotten, she simply takes it in, step by step, marvelling at the way nature manages to survive.

Lincoln moves steadily at her side, propping her up as they move slowly through the forest. If he has any thoughts on the sounds of delight that fall often from her lips, then he keeps them to himself. 

The final mile is gruelling, and Raven feels exhaustion taking hold as they reach the peak of a hill. She notes the way the sun has moved across the sky towards the horizon, and realises then that soon she’ll experience her first sunset.

For a moment her chest feels light, free, but then the cut across her stomach begins throbbing, and she fears she may have done more harm than good by pushing them to move at the pace she had. Lincoln lowers her to rest against the edge of a tree as he considers the wound, and it gives her an opportunity to once again take in her surroundings.

She realises with a start that they are on the edge of a village, sprawling across the valley of the hill. Small structures are spaced unevenly throughout the trees, with cleared patches of grass located sparsely between. To her surprise some even contain animals, some of which look vaguely familiar. She gasps in shock, as a light laugh leaves her lips, before realising the silliness of the moment: humans had survived the apocalypse, why would animals not have survived as well?

With an incline of his head, Lincoln nods towards the centre of the township, where a circular building stands surrounded by stones. “The person you are looking for, he’s there,” he says kindly, pulling Raven to her feet.

For a moment, she struggles to find her footing, muscles aching with protest, but she steadies herself as she looks from Lincoln to the building, a wider smile blooming on her lips. She watches, as Lincoln extends a hand for support, and turns the smile back to him.

“Thank you.” A pause, and Lincoln tilts his head in half-confusion. Raven laughs, and the sound reverberates around her. “For, you know, saving me.”

“Ste yuj, strik bird,” he replies softly. “There’s still a way to go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigedasleng Translations:  
> Ste, strik bird. -> Calm, little bird.   
> Yu laik klir kom me. -> You are safe with me.  
> chilla en ste. yu laik kodon. -> Stay calm and still. You are (cut) hurt.  
> Osir laik going houm. -> We are going home.   
> Ste yuj, strik bird. -> Stay strong, little bird.


	7. vii.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s only when he hears his name called quietly from the door that his breath quickens again._
> 
> _“Raven?” he whispers, inching forward as she nods, and shuffles slowly into the middle of the dimly lit room._
> 
> _“Hi Bell,” she murmurs almost nervously in reply._
> 
> Raven finds Bellamy, Bellamy finds Raven: and in the end, that's all that needs to be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it's here, the final part of this slightly epic saga. Thank you so anyone who has read, kudos'ed, commented or just glanced at this sweeping tale of keeping the two main characters separate for as long as humanly possible -- I hope you reach the end and feel rewarded in having chosen to stick this one out.
> 
> A massive amount of thanks and gratitude to geckoholic, who continued to stick this out with me as well. Given the various drafts and rewrites that took place, I am forever thankful that you kept pulling bits and pieces of it back into line to help it read like an actual story.

**vii.**

When Bellamy wakes the brightness of the late morning sky has been replaced by hazy, murky darkness. Blinking, he works slowly to push himself into a sitting position, a hand reaching towards his head where a lump has swollen, which stings when he pokes it cautiously. As the focus begins to clear, he finds he is inside a dwelling, unsure of where or when.

“I think we were out for a while, a couple of hours at least.” Wells speaks from behind him, and Bellamy swivels in what he now can tell is a makeshift bed. “There was food here when I woke up. Meat and some sort of vegetable stew,” he motions to the pot brewing over a fire. “You need to eat.”

Nodding mutely, Bellamy stands carefully and moves towards the kindling. He finds the warmth welcoming, replacing the shiver that descends his spine, and discovers the world becomes more focused with each step he takes. Eventually he stills next to Wells, and takes the bowl gratefully, shovelling the food into his mouth to placate the growl his stomach releases.

They’d left to find Raven just after dawn, and reached the empty pod within an hour. Tracking her couldn’t have taken more than another hour, but given the tent is lit by the soft glow of the fire and not much else, the day has obviously been eaten away by the thumping he and Wells had been given to keep the secrecy of this place from them. 

“I thought about calling out,” Wells supplies, once Bellamy’s motions have slowed from shovelling the food to spooning slowly. “But considering the way we were brought here, I thought it might be better—”

“If we were both conscious when we meet these people,” Bellamy finished, nodding as he sets the bowl aside and turns to meet Wells’ gaze. He’s impressed to see confidence in his eyes, rather than fear or cowardice. After all, they were brought, unharmed (for the most part) to this place of safety. They’ve been fed, rather than placed in chains, and there seem to be no precautions in place if they decide to run.

“We could—” Bellamy considers out loud, because there _isn’t_ a guard, as far as he can tell, and given the darkness that clearly surrounded them, escape could be possible. Only they have no comprehension of where they have been taken, and despite the short amount of time they’ve spent on the ground, they know enough of the potential dangers lurking out there that whatever they may face from these people is safer than what they might face if they leave.

Wells, annoyingly, seems to be able to read his face, and shakes his head when Bellamy meets his eyes. “There’s no way we could leave, but there’s also no point. These people are _born_ on the ground,” he comments, hands motioning to the room they sit in, filled with trinkets and objects foreign to Bellamy’s eye. “They have their history with this land, a history and knowledge that isn’t ours, not anymore.”

It strikes Bellamy that there’s a sadness in his voice; slight, but not entirely unexpected. His initial anger at the boy has gradually turned into respect, because up in their floating metal home Wells somehow managed to learn more about the world they left behind than most adults Bellamy has ever met. And while there was no guarantee that Wells’ ancestors would have survived the apocalypse, Bellamy thinks perhaps Wells’ wish is that they might’ve had the chance, just to walk the land he so clearly loves.

“They are keeping us here for a reason-” Wells continues, shaking himself and Bellamy from the quiet that had stilled around them. “We wouldn’t be fed, or free from chains if they didn’t want to at least _talk_ through things.”

“But what if it’s all just a trap?” Bellamy replies, because while Wells may be the person who sees the good in everything, Bellamy has spent his life being burned by trust. His absent father, his dead mother, and Raven, who he let see his world and in the end…

_No,_ he reasons, stopping the thought before it continues. For too long he’s used blame to hide the truth and guard his heart, too long he’s allowed their choices to guide his actions. The absent father that might’ve been, given the chance his mother stripped from him. The mother who shared her responsibility because it was the only way she knew to survive. The girl who fell from grace then space because she didn’t know the world without him.

Instead of dwelling on the past he looks around the room. It’s small, quaint. Nothing too spectacular; but then, any manors of old went up in flames, and when you have a world with life reborn, do you really need much more than four sturdy walls?

(He knows, had he been given his choice of life, he wouldn’t have asked for much else.)

Bellamy’s about to suggest looking around the lodging to gain further knowledge into the people who survived on the ground when a figure appears in the shadows, pushing open the flap of a door and letting wind gust through the opening which threatens to dull the open flames. His body stiffens in defence, eyes trained on the man’s war paint that covers half his face.

The stranger’s lips part, and for a moment Bellamy thinks they will curl into a snarl, only they fold into a smile, soft and welcoming, and Bellamy can’t stop the shock he feels from falling onto his features. It isn’t what he expected from the first person they’ve met on the ground, and the man looks like he knows it too, letting out a small laugh before shaking his head.

“I’m not here to hurt you, Bellamy,” his voice is deep, scratchy, but his body relaxed as he moves towards him.

Bellamy steps back though, unable to move past the fact that his name had fallen from this foreigner’s lips.

Despite the movement, the man continues towards them, the smile still playing faintly on his lips. “My name is Lincoln, and I believe I found something that belongs to you.”

Bellamy feels his heart jump from his chest to his throat, flight or fight defence ready to kick in, because what could he have that Bellamy has lost?

It’s only when he hears his name called quietly from the door that his breath quickens again.

“Raven?” he whispers, inching forward as she nods, and shuffles slowly into the middle of the dimly lit room.

“Hi Bell,” she murmurs almost nervously in reply.

She’s smaller than he remembers; smaller and thinner, with deep dark circles under her eyes like she hasn’t slept in months. If her voice wasn’t engraved on his heart and in his soul, he would almost mistake her for someone who had grown up completely on the ground.

But behind the timid words there is that spark that is real and true and so undeniably Raven. The certainty that was always there when she spoke, the confidence in her and him and them together. He’d forgotten, for a moment, what she sounded like; the way her words, her voice, were coiled deep deep down in the cavern of his heart.

He had wanted to leave her behind so badly he’d almost forgotten that she was half his soul.

Suddenly the room feels suffocatingly full, and Bellamy closes his eyes to try and calm the breaths that come in quick deep punches to his chest. But then there are soft, delicate hands pushing through his hair and lingering on his cheek and pulling him down into the safest place he’ll ever be; and his breath comes in sharp waves because it’s not in his mind or in his dreams but right here, in this new world they are conquering.

And in an instant, he is gulping for air and pulling her to him, his arms wrapping like snakes tighter and tighter until between them there is no space left for his air and her air, it is only their air and their world, and the thumping slows to a soft drum, and she sighs over and over, “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

If he could find the words he would tell her he is sorry too, for cutting her off, for leaving her behind, for dreaming that she was the devil looking over his shoulder to blame for the things he has done.

But he can’t, because he himself needs to atone for those sins, so instead he grips her tight and silently promises to never, never let her go.

And he wouldn’t, only Raven shuffles against him, her silent sobs turning into laughing hiccups, and she pushes gently in his embrace, searching, seeking, looking to meet his eyes. Bellamy opens his mouth, hesitant but desperate to tell her how much he’s missed her, when a pointed cough startles him from the moment.

He turns to meet Wells ever so slightly smug look, and then watches as he nods towards the man, Lincoln, who also looks more pleased than he has any right to.

“You still haven’t told us why we’re here.” Bellamy grits out, instantly irked by the expression Lincoln is giving him.

But Lincoln simply smiles bigger, and motions backwards out of the room. “Come,” he replies. “Tonight, we will feast in celebration to the people who fell down from the sky. Tomorrow there will be time to talk.”

While Bellamy glances towards Wells, still unsure of this man who seems to know more about them than they do of him, Raven moves forward, seemingly happy to follow Lincoln. It stirs something deep in Bellamy, and he has to swallow the feeling and control his features when she looks back to him.

But her smile is radiant, and as her hand reaches back toward him, her eyes meet his and he can sense her thoughts, just like before: _I trust him, you can trust him too_.

And as he takes her hand and follows her into the unknown, Bellamy prays he can.

 

 

\--

 

 

They are welcomed at the feast, gathered by strangers who look as different, and the same, as those who survived in the sky. They are given meats with strange tastes that set his taste buds alive; drink liquid that tastes different to moonshine but makes his head spin all the same.

The people around him speak in a strange tongue, words slipping through that he thinks he could know, if only they would slow down just a little. But they are filtered by words that sound foreign in his mind, and not for the first time since finding out about their existence, Bellamy mulls on just how society has come to evolve on the ground.

And it’s not just a matter of the simplicity of their life, compared to what the world had before the beginning of the end. From the ashes of death life had found its way, and people with nothing in common beyond their luck at survival had come together and spawned a new society, and with it, Bellamy finds, a whole new way of thinking.

Which is remarkable even without considering the ways in which their new world would not have been equipped or prepared for their survival. After all, the history the Ark painted had told him time and time again he would live and die in space – and only his children’s, children’s, children would be lucky enough to return to the ground.

And yet here he is, basking in the heat that radiates from those so close to him, sticky with the warmth that comes, he has been told, from the late summer humid air.

Living, breathing, existing in a world that should not be.

It’s only when Raven’s hand snakes around his wrist, and tugs him away from the noise that Bellamy is broken from his reverie. As he stumbles after her, he has enough sense to mouth, “What about Wells?”, his large strides catching her smaller ones in moments. But then she’s pressed flush against his chest, a blush on her cheeks that hadn’t been there before, and he regrets the words immediately.

“He’s fine,” she says slowly, nodding her head to where Wells sits, engrossed in conversation with one of the people from the ground. He looks up and meets Bellamy’s eye, giving him a little wave, before returning to the conversation without waiting for a response.

Red flags are going off in Bellamy’s mind, because they are wading more deeply into the unknown now, and for so long he’d played by so many rules, that it’s hard for him to accept that here they do things differently; here sister doesn’t mean death, but life, isn’t something to keep hidden but celebrated, here you are given a choice in the way you live your life, here the rules are fair.

As he wonders how long it will take him to wrap his head around a life that doesn’t follow rigidity just to survive, he finally looks back to meet Raven’s eyes. Her gaze doesn’t waver, and he swallows thickly as she tugs on his hand.

“I was hoping-” she starts, then pauses, pulling a lip between her teeth. “I just wanted to, you know,” she stumbles, and Bellamy bites back the smile that threatens to form at her nerves. Once upon a time, Raven wouldn’t have had a problem telling him exactly what she thought, exactly what she wanted. Only that was when they were connected only through their eyes, and now that they are face to face – well, Bellamy gets it.

“We should probably talk,” Raven finishes sheepishly, looking away.

Bellamy waits for a moment, gives her time to gather her thoughts, before reaching down and tilting her chin upwards so she meets his eyes again.

“Talking would be nice,” he replies, and laughs as a wide smile blooms on her face. Then, without pause, he’s being dragged through the maze of houses, huts, that make up this village, back to the place he and Wells were kept.

She’s breathless by the time they arrive, and Bellamy feels the rush of whatever was in his drink pulsing through his veins. He trails her through the flap of the door, her hand falling through his fingers and she moves herself to the centre, busying herself instantly with sparking the fire to life again.

Even without her books and spacesuit, she’s still a mechanic, breathing life in the strangest of ways.

He moves towards her, sitting close enough while maintaining her space. The silence stretches thin around them, awkwardness and apprehension coating his thoughts. Once upon a time, he could’ve told Raven anything about himself; once upon a time he did. But now, after months of silence, without the rush of relief that had coursed through him earlier; all that remains are the choices they made that landed them here.

“I think they want to help us,” Raven says gently, her voice barely louder than a whisper. “The Grounders, that is. People born on the ground.”

It takes him by surprise, that she brings them up first. They are neutral ground, he considers briefly, and something that he supposes will need to be discussed in due time.

Only he doesn’t want to talk about them. Not when Raven is here, with him, flesh and blood and bone, something he can reach and touch and –

He feels like he’s been waiting half his life to see her. Sometimes he can’t remember what he was before Raven Reyes opened his eyes.

“Raven,” Bellamy mumbles out, voice hoarse from straining to be heard over the loud crowd outside, thick from the alcohol that both dulls his senses and heightens his thoughts. He shuffles closer, reaching for her hand, only to sigh as she pulls it away at the touch, as if being burned by fire.

“No,” she sobs with a shake of her head. “Bell, I just –” her words are shaky, her breathing uneven, and all Bellamy wants to do is reach out and pull her to him and tell her over and over that it’s okay.

But Raven needs to say this, it’s a confession and it’s hers. So instead he waits as her breath evens.

“I am so, so sorry,” she cries eventually, reaching up to scrub tears from her cheeks roughly, as if to say who is she to cry for the pain she caused his heart? “I shouldn’t have sent the masks, I should’ve, been honest –” she takes another deep breath, and finally looks up to meet his eyes. “I should’ve trusted you, when you wanted to meet. If I had been there, I could’ve, I don’t know, help -”

“No, no,” Bellamy stops her, taking her face in his hands to keep her eyes on him. “Raven, if you had been there, you could’ve been just as complicit as me. They could have blamed you too, and I don’t know how I would have–” he stops, his voice breaking, because his hands are damp with her tears, and his heart is thrumming to an erratic beat for the first time in months and without thinking his hand slips from her face to her chest, palm pressed against her heart, which is thumping in sync with his.

And he laughs, because of course, even after everything they’ve been though, they are still them. She’s still Raven and he’s still Bellamy and that _has_ to be enough, at least for now.

“You’re nervous.” He says through a smile, which only widens when she gasps out a laugh and pins him with a look that, until today, he could only imagine being on the receiving end of.

“You were the one who used to be nervous,” she replies with another laugh, half choked through the mess of tears that are slowly, steadily stopping. It takes her a moment, but the smile fades from her face, and she shakes her head. “I thought of you, every day you were gone. And when I felt you on that ship, when you dropped from the ship and for the smallest fraction of a moment you felt your heart stop, mine did too.”

It stuns him a little, that she knows about that moment. And as caution creeps across his face, her eyes narrow, and she nods her head slowly. “I know about that too,” she replies, reading his thoughts. “But Bell, you don’t have to be afraid. He’s still alive, up there. They saved him.”

Bellamy is surprised to feel relief push though him again; shocked at the guilt that had been growing steadily, day after day, the longer he was here, the closer her became to Wells. He’d tried to keep them from contacting the ark, determined to keep them from discovering the truth – but now, after finding Raven, after seeing the way her own guilt was etched on her features when she thought he wasn’t looking, well, maybe he deserves absolution too.

It’s different now, to what it was before. They are different. She’s staring at him, and he can feel the weight of her eyes. Before, it was like she was looking through him, and could see only his world, and what he willed her to see; now it’s like she can see the boy he was (frozen in fear and fractured in loss) and the man he might become.

“I couldn’t have done it without you,” he supplies eventually, as Raven reaches for his hand and presses it to her lips. “I wouldn’t be here without you. Wouldn’t be on the ground, with my sister, where she doesn’t have to hide anymore. I blamed you Raven, for so long.” He pauses, but she nods for him to continue. “I wanted you to hurt like I did, wanted you to be in pain like me, but in the end,” Bellamy says gently, moving forward to close the space between them until his face is inches from hers. “I just lost myself, because I didn’t have you.”

He closes the gap, allowing his lips to brush hers ever so gently. It’s tentative, cautious; a question more than a demand, because you can’t order Raven Reyes to do something, you need to ask, and he is asking for more than just forgiveness.

And as Bellamy pulls back slightly, to meet her eyes, he laughs as a smile transforms her face, and grins as she pulls him back to her, mouth crushing against his forcefully. He groans against her lips, and she takes the opportunity to push her tongue into his mouth, body surging forward as she curls into his lap. Arms move, from the side of her face to her neck then her back, roaming gently before resting on the small curve that arches towards him, hungrily wanting to be closer, closer, closer until nothing exists but them. Raven bites down on his lip, sparking, stoking the flame within him; but the sweet taste on her lips, the alcohol coursing through them, causes him to draw back and slow down until the kisses become movements of familiarity from two people whose souls have waited for each other for far too long.

When he eventually pulls away, Bellamy watches the way her tongue traces over her lips, red and raw, and catalogues the image carefully as a memory he’ll want to revisit, time and time again. Raven’s hands stay wrapped around his neck, fingers dancing distractingly through his hair. “I have wanted to do that,” Bellamy breathes out slowly, “For a really, really long time.”

Raven laughs quietly as she shifts on his lap, lowering her head to rest against his shoulder. Bellamy uses the movement to pull her closer, noting the way her body relaxes against his.

“Me too,” she replies eventually, eyes darting from eyes to lips then back to meet his eyes. “I’m just sorry it too us so long,” Raven begins, but Bellamy just shakes his head.

“Can we agree to stop using that word, and stop apologising?” he asks, as Raven reaches a hand up to stifle a yawn that escapes her lips. He can sense the way her body has moved from energized to tired in mere moments, which isn’t surprising to him, not given the last twenty-four hours she’s endured.

He tugs her from his lap and stands slowly, guiding her gently towards the small cot that lays closest to the fire. Raven pouts a little as he lowers her to the bed, but acquiesces eventually, laying down as she pulls the pillow towards her head.

“Fine, no more sorry,” she grumbles, voice sleepy, but eventually a tired smile forms on her face. “We can just start over,” she continues, “I’m Raven Reyes, and I’m quite sure I’m in love with you.”

Bellamy feels his heart stop as the words fall from her lips in the smallest of whispers. For a moment, he thinks he hasn’t heard her right, only her hand reaches out towards him, dragging him towards the bed, an open invitation for him to slip right next to her. He hesitates, mind whirling with what if’s and maybe’s, but decides ultimately to push them from his thoughts. It’s their new beginning after all, and Raven is someone who goes after what she wants, and never does things by halves.

He slides down next to Raven and pulls her into his arms then waits, listening as her breathing slows, steadies, and events out. While his heart rate begins to thump at a slower pace, aligning itself with its other half, a fleeting thought passes through his mind.

He’d forgotten to tell Raven he was quite sure he loved her too.

 

 

\--

 

 

After treaties are created by men born in space and women raised on the ground, after the Ark receives a message from the girl who now only dreams of her stars, after those they left behind fall down to Earth, Raven and Bellamy begin anew, by the sea, in a place of their own they call home.

Sinclair journeys with them, and then onward into the unknown, with a promise to return when he has discovered what lies beyond the water. Octavia too stays with them for a time, until, restless with the quiet, she sets out seeking her own adventure, desperate to start again.

They return, of course: back to where it began. They are welcomed, always, by Linkon kom Trikru, and Wells of the Sky People, comrades in arms working to shape a world that must be better than what came before.

But in their quiet moments by the sea, when the sounds of the waves crashing on the shore lull them into silence, and their fingers intertwine (soft and hard, rough and smooth), they share a thought: thank the stars I found you.

 

 

\--

 

 

Once, before civilisation left the world to ruin, souls were bound in search of their mate; someone who would, without question or hesitation, complete them. Destruction tore generations of souls apart, between space and land, sea and sky, and most were left to wander through life longing for someone they could never hope to find.  

And still they would be adrift in the world…

If not for a boy with dark eyes and a secret hidden deep in his heart; if not for a girl with a brilliant mind, left unloved, who was almost alone in this world.


End file.
